Splitdecision271

Do you brush gelcoat on?

Can you apply gel coat overtop of gelcoat paste? Will the paste buff to a shine?

I'm not sure if my plan of attack will work. I want to make it as simple as possible. I was thinking of filling/injecting either resin or paste directly into the whole. Let stand then wet sand smooth. I'm having doubts.

glassdave

iTrader: (1)

yea you can buff the paste if you are just filling a small chip. What are you tryingt to do? For brushing i usually spray on with a dump gun than move it around with a brush as its curing but thats only for areas like bilges. For finish work use Duratec in the gel and you can shoot it through an automotive gun,

Splitdecision271

it's basically a small chip size now. I drilled out the hole, plugged it and injected the hole with resin. Now I just need to sand it down a bit, rough up the edges and gelcoat. Being it's so small I'm just going to brush it on and then wet sand it down. I plan on finishing it up Thursday or Friday this week. Supposed to be low 70's so it should cure quickly.

glassdave

iTrader: (1)

yea you can do that, use a course enough grit to level it. I usually start with 180 or 220 to get the highest spots knocked down then step up to finer stuff. Get a small piece of a wood paint stick and wrap a piece of sandpaper around that then just glide the paper over the top of it. You have to kind of sneak up on it.

Splitdecision271

Well my first attempt at gelcoating was a success. If you have some basic knowledge of fiberglass and how it works then your better off, but overall the job came out better then I expected. Best part about this job it only cost me $1, for a flavor injector that I used to inject the resin to fill the screw holes.

I pick up the resin from a buddy who had some left over, and the gel coat I got from my Formula dealer for free, and it was color matched. Thankfully it's white so that made it a bit easier.

Basically after filling the hole with resin, I drilled it out as well as the surrounding gelcoat so it would get a good bond. I then mixed up a tablespoon of the gel with 2 drops of hardner and used a injector I found laying around the house filled it up with the gel and injected it onto the repair. Let it cure for a bit till tacky and coverd with a plastic bag and smoothed out the area. Let it cure for 24 hours.

The next day removed the bag and wetsanded with 220 to start to remove the high spots. There was one low spot that I had to sand out mix up another batch of gel to fill. Thankfully it was upper 70's and it hardened in a couple of hours.

Knocked the high spots down again with 220(wet) and then finished with 2000 to remove all sand marks. Wetsanded the surrounding area too to help blend the repair in.

Used a wool pad and some 1500 cutting compound to bring back the luster. Followed with some finishing compound on a wool pad to remove the 1500 swirls, and finished with some polish and sealer on a blue polishing foam pad. Then used the same sealer but applied by hand to get a good heavy coat on.

The repair is hardly noticable.

glassdave

iTrader: (1)

nice! gotta love it when a plan works out.