Prep for gelcoat

[ledzeppelin135]

Ok so I am getting close to the gelcoat part of my resto. I am really curious as to how I should prep the boat for the gelcoat. I will be doing the hull and sides while flipped over and then doing the rubrail up when it is back on the trailer and am curious as to what needs to be done about the occasional crazed gelcoat on the hull and sides as well as what should be done about the gelcoat holes I guess you could call them. The hull is straight but the gelcoat is crazed in a few areas and has a bunch of "dimples" all over the bottom of the boat. I am not sure if I need to fair the whole thing or if sanding would work to get the whole area smooth would work. I have a couple repairs on the transom area as well as one on the keel that need to be ground down flush, but would I use fairing compound to blend in any high spot that occur because of these patches? Also one more thing is it seems for some reason the PO ground of the cap and hull join that runs around the transom area of the boat and tried to fill it smooth. The right side of the motor does not seem to be cracking on this area, but the left side was cracking where you could see that joint was supposed to be. He had no fiberglass joining the gap but he just used some sort of a filler. I ground these cracks smooth and put a layer of csm on there and glassed it but it seems to be cracking again on that one side, not as much but enough to be a problem. I know that the transom is solid as it does not move and is not rotted, it has been replaced but what can I do to prevent these cracks? Thanks guys

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: Prep for gelcoat

Well I'm NOT a Gelcoat pro but I believe if you are going to re-gelcoat your entire hull then you should sand the entire hull down to bare glass removing all the old gel coat. Wipe with Acetone and then shoot the new Gelcoat. Let's see what the Pro's on here have to say. I'm sure they will come along and give you the correct procedure.

 

[rfdfirecaptain]

Re: Prep for gelcoat

First I would post photos of all your trouble spots. I had a gelcoat and crack issue once too and I didn?t get a lot of solid advice until I posted photos.

You might try to PM Yacht Dr. to see if he can jump on this thread and blog in his advice. He saved me from making some mistakes big and small, with my own repairs. There were some who didn?t agree with his advice, but today I am so glad I listened to him. Good Luck. And don?t forget to post update photos too.

 

[BWT]

Re: Prep for gelcoat

Hey LedZ,

Lots of Q's here; alot of them requiring speculation on our part (at least at this point). Before I type a page of what if's, lets see if some pics can be posted. That will make things much more efficient

Some Q's and general comments I have off the bat:

what kind of boat are we talking about?

How much bottom paint (if any) is on the bottom? (make sure to get some pics of this dimpling)

Old repairs should be sanded flush rather than built up with fairing to blend in (this will let you see what was actually done for the repairs; poor patches probably need to be re-done

Irregularities in the hull can be sanded down until you get to bare glass (knocking down high spots). At that point you'll need to start filling in the low spots rather than removing more material. But again, without pics I can't say for sure

As far as the transom cracks, again hard to say without pics. Could just be a matter of beefing up the prior repairs or something more..

I'll be watching this thread to see how things come along

~BWT

 

[oops!]

Re: Prep for gelcoat

yeah......need pics.

especially of the dimples.

the crazed areas need to be ground to glass and see why it is crazed.....if the cracks go thru to the glass......they will need a layer of 1.5 csm on them.

 

[Yacht Dr.]

Re: Prep for gelcoat

yeah......need pics.

Me too ..

YD.