So yeah i bought some white gelcoat... it probably doesnt match exactly, can i take it somewhere to be tinted? How is this normally done, in the past i have just had paint mixed locally but ive never worked with gelcoat before

its done by eye and trial and error. I start with a color I think is close then go through a process of small test spots in the area of the repair. I also dont generally use tints directly as the can be strong and push you way past where you wanna be, I use a version of the parent color that is over tinted and use that to push my final color around. it can be very arduous as colors mixed dont necessarily cure that same color. its also one of those things that every glass guy does differently.

As I read this, I'm thinking of the job my guy is going to tackle tomorrow (on black). I suppose you glass/gel guys have a knack for this, have granular level experience, and are less trial and error than you are intent and correct........Thank goodness for great glass guys!

that ppg concept is looking like a pretty good option nobody local carries it though, just have to get one of these ppg suppliers to actually call me back

or maybe i dont really care that my transom is a little whiter than the hull side lol

Sparky24 - I AM A NOVICE so don't take this as gospel

I had a small area in my Cobalt that had a ding in the gel coat - I called Cobalt and they provided me the exact color of my boat etc. I never did gel coat in my life and the kit that I got was extremely easy to do - ground out the area mixed the gel filled let it dry lightly sanded and final polished with Flix-- It matched perfectly. You may want to contact the manufacturer as a starting point.

my 2cents

3pointstar

thats how i have always had my paint mixed and never had too much of a problem with match, unfortunately excalibur went out of business 30 years ago haha

something to think about when considering using a single stage paint for gel repair. On older gel you will have better luck blending a budget product like Shopline or Omni. Concept will have a much higher gloss and it will be difficult to get the glosses to match enough across the blend. MTK or JAU have a lower gloss when worked down and mimic older seasoned gel pretty good. Technique is also very important for a seamless blend, less is better on the edge.

i judge my paint jobs from 10 feet away so im not that worried about it. sometimes 20

Im just going to gelcoat it and leave it as a good base for painting the entire boat a few years down the road instead of spending 200-300 on just painting the transom and hatches. 44 bucks for a gallon of us composites gelcoat sounds good to me.

Ya im not a big fan of concept. The guys at my local PPG store wanted me to try out the concept on a repair I did yesterday. That stuff was so damn thick my SATA jet 4000 could hardly spray it and it came out like marbles. I mean, it flowed out pretty good, but hard to really lay it flat cause you had to lay it thick to flow out. We'll see how it sands out tomorrow and how it buffs. Luckily the boat buffed out good so im not too worried about the gloss differences being TOO different. But Ya, paint single stage matching is much easier than gel matching. Stay away from omni though when you are trying to match because the match doesn't always come out exact

last Concept job I did layed like glass, very little sanding beyond a light hit with fifteen hundred and three thousand. Hull sides took maybe a half a day from start to finish sand and buff and it was a thirty eight. Its not the product that causes it to spray poorly. Check that your gun is properly set up for single stage and that you are shooting with enough pressure. If you rely on the Profit soley for color matches best your ever gonna get is "close" I dont care what system you use. I mix all mine from a library of colors I have on hand based on white variances from PPG's original variance deck (the deck has been out of production for about fifteen years now and I have two, very handy tool for color matching )