Matching gelcoat?

[play2win]

A few years back before I became intrigued to do any sort of repair on boats. A hole was repaired on the side of my checkmate (from a damn jet-skier). Anyway, by boat is black with silver metalflake, and repair area is grey. What can do or use to sand that down, and make it uniform with rest of boat. Forget about metalflake, I just want to know what to apply to surface (paint, gelcoat, filler????)

 

[gt1000]

Re: Matching gelcoat?

Without seeing the repair job here's some suggestions.<br /><br />1. Since its seems like a smaller area use the same surface substance as the original be it gelcoat, paint, etc.<br />2. They make a variety of gel coats - white, black, orange, neutral (for coloring) and even clear so that you can clear coat and or add metllic flake if you choose.<br />3. Gelcoat is nice to work with because you can actually sand buff it up to gloss.<br />4. You can start with a neutral base and add tint to the batch until you match the color. You can even smear the gelcoat on the boat to get the exact color match since you haven't added the catalyst yet it will just wipe off with a little acetone on a rag.<br />5. Before you try to match color I'd buff an area of the same color close to the repair to remove oxidation and fading. Match to the unfaded color. In about 30 -90 days the unfaded color should fade to the color of the rest of the boat.<br /><br />Well, I'm not sure what experience you have with paints and fiberglass, so I'll leave off here. I'd also check you local library for fiberglass, gelcoat, and boat repair books and videos. A good book will be able to give you the proper preparation in more detail.<br /><br />Here's a link with a video clip:<br /> http://www.fiberglass-repair.com/ <br /><br />It's actually pretty easy and the gelcoat is forgiving. Good Luck.