The bottom is coming along nicely. I did have to remove a lot of scratches though. I think the guy that owned it before me towed it to the ramp without a trailer! I have sanded with 60 grit, 150, and 320. There is no fiberglass showing through. Should I re-gel anyway, or continue sanding smooth and watch for stress cracks during the season?

Not sure how thick Sonic made the gel way back then. You may be able to ask TooOld and get some insite there. As far as sanding it down, If you do go through you can blend the Gell with new stuff if you go through to the glass. You mentioned stress cracks. By thining out the gel you are actually reducing the likelyhood that you will have cracks. Thick gell is ussually the cause of stress cracks. I had a million in my dash and by sanding them down the actually all disapeared except for two of them. I would not sand with anything more then 300 grit if you can avoid it. Otherwise you will likely see the sand scratch when you buff it out. Good luck

What about little stress cracks in the fairing? Can you sand those out?

Damn I knew I was going to open up a pandora's box

Boatless I would say live with them or have a prol look at it. The only reason that I offered up the above advice was that he had already dug into it quite a bit.

Catch me in the chat later and I will offer up any advice that I can as far as fixing that stuff up

Jon

Just remember if you remove too much gelcoat, you increase the possibility of getting blisters. Especially if boat is left in the water for a period of time. As far as the stress cracks, the concern is always if the cracks are just in the gel or are they into the glass. If into glass, obviously these need to be fixed. But,you won't know until you start grinding or sanding on them.

I've never heard that thin gel coat causes blistering??? I always thought that thicker gel leads to blistering, or incorrectly applied paint over gel...

Anyone else?

Gel is porous. Still usually if it is thick and crack-free, the moisture will not make it to the mat. Thin gel sounds like blister time to me.

Course I got blisters on a vinylester "blister-proof" SeaRay cruiser... Some boats get em, some boats don't.

mcollin is right about the gel being porous[permeability], water will pass through it, gel is polyester and it is not water proof. blisters are caused by the fiberglass mat under the gel not being cured all the way, are contaminates in the glass. if you do not have any blisters on the bottom Ken, I would just keep an eye on it, if your boat has not blistered by now chances are it will never blister, you keep it stored out of the water don't you? if so I would not worry to much, gel most of the time is 10 to 22 mils thick, if you sand down to 7 or 8 you will be ok, and most Sonics are a little on the thick side good luck
Mark

It is a 1990 and the gel is pretty thick. I do not keep it in the water, and there are no existing blisters.

I don't think you will have any problems at all Ken, I would keep an eye on it from time to time though, maybe someone else will add to this with some more input,
Mark