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West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
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> > Has anyone in the group purchased gelcoat from IM? I am
> interested in fixing
> > up a few damaged spots and wondered how easy this job is and is
> it necessary
> > to order from IM or could you get some at a marine store? Since it's
> > considered hazardous material the freight costs more than the
> gelcoat. Just
> > wondered if it was worth it.
>
> Jim:
>
> When I started patching up the gelcoat on "Always", my first call
> was to IM.
> They could not provide the color match for my boat. I was told
> that every boat
> (with the hull color option) is somewhat custom in its color and
> that I'd have
> better luck matching it myself. I bought the necessary gelcoat
> repair kit from
> Boaters World and did it myself. Total cost was under $25.
>
> It wasn't that hard to do it, but you definitely want a well
> ventilated area to
> work in when you do it.
Yeah, what he said! I've been doing a lot of gelcoat work this year and it
isn't that hard to do. It is somewhat time consuming though, so its much
cheaper to learn to do it yourself than have a boatyard do it. When i went
hard aground this summer and tore up the daggerboard trunk and broke a solar
panel, then most expensive part of the fix was actually the filling in of
the four 1/4" holes where the old solar panel was. The much more extensive
daggerboard repairs were much cheaper. Surprised the heck out of me, and
once I saw just how good a boatyard repair can be, I bought the stuff to try
it myself and have been fixing all of my old annoying dings.
But be sure to buy the stuff that is two-part with a hardener (might
actually be more parts in practice if you have to mix colors). The quick
'scratch patch' stuff just goes on too soft and doesn't hold its color, but
the real hardened gelcoat products are as tough as the surrounding finish.
If you get the color matched right and wet-sand the result before waxing,
you'd be real hard pressed to locate where the damage was.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jan 31 2000 - 03:27:08 PST