best gelcoat repair kit?

Veg

Veg

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So there's a few hairline cracks on my boat that I'd like to fix. They are not on the main hull or top deck structure so they are not anything that concern me a lot, and they are in spots where I'm probably the only one who sees them (there's one in the dash area under the windshield coming from a screw for the sliding door track, one in one of the cockpit livewell access hatch panels, coming from one of the screws that holds the latch in place etc.) I got an estimate from a professional, and it's ridiculous. He pretty much estimates 4-8 hours per little hairline crack a $100/hr.

Which leads me to, I'm gonna have to do these myself. I did a couple a few years back on my other boat and got mediocre results. The main problem of all was the gelcoat mixture from the kit I bought at west marine. It was transparent and the color was added, and I must not have added enough as the "fix" seems to not have enough white on it.

I contacted Tiara, and they can sell me a quart of gelcoat for like $160, but they said it doesn't keep well and I'm likely to need MUCH LESS than that.

So I'm thinking, considering the locations of these little cracks, if I can find a decent kit that has a white gelcoat, it'll probably come out good enough. Plan B would be to maybe just use MarineTex, but I'm not sure how that would look.

Any suggestions?

Also, any additional ideas as to equipment to have which might make the job easier are welcome.
 
http://www.bottompaintstore.com/fiberglass-and-gel-coat-repair-gel-coat-repair-kit-and-fiberglass-repair-kit-c-13581_13594.html?gclid=CNnFhNPiobICFYFo4Aod1g0A-Q You can mix colors to match your gelcoat.
 
Okay, how do I say this succinctly? Yes, you need fresh gelcoat and you will be hard pressed to have anybody mix anything less than a quart. Whatever, its not THAT expensive. But, how you apply it makes as much or more difference than the product itself. You really need to spray it if you want it to blend. If you don't, forget it. Your repair man's hour estimate is not too far off in the 4 hour estimate and that's not 4 hours in a row (dry time).

BTW, hairline cracks show up because something is flexing. Don't do anything until you reinforce whatever is flexing as they will just come right back.

Now, the post to describe the entire process of pre-sanding, filling, sanding, mixing, spraying, sanding, maybe spray again, sand-cut-polish is a much longer post
 
When I did some glas work on my little boat (after a tree fell on it), I sent a piece out and had it colored matched to the "faded" color. I did the work myself, came out good. I was getting quotes of 4-7k for this job.

Lesson learned, pay to have a professional do it. Do it once, do it right. Plus they might even give you a warranty on the work...
 
Ghost - so even for a small repair in hard to see areas you'd be spraying the whole area? My plan was to do something like this, even though with a hairline crack it ends up being a very tiny groove even after "opening it up":

http://www.boatus.com/boattech/casey/gelcoat-scratch-repair.asp

In a way I'd be concerned about spraying a whole area to fix one little hairline crack. But if you want to take the time to provide more info, I'll appreciate it. Frankly I'd rather spend the money on getting the right tools and learning to do this well myself (I'll probably own boats for another 30-40 years, so it's probably worth learning)... These would be a good starting point as they are not a big deal if they don't come out perfect. I have a Dremel Multi Max that I was planning on using for the initial sanding. If spraying is indeed the way to go, then I need to invest in some equipment. I already have a buffer obviously.

As for flexing, the hairline cracks are coming from screws, in a couple of instances where a screw was recently removed and then replaced (as in: it hadn't cracked in 10 years before, but then started cracking after the screw went back in). In another from the screw that holds the strike plate on the transom door. I've fixed some like these in my previous boat and took care when replacing the screws and they never came back (at least in the next 2 years while I still had the boat). The areas in question are not part of the hull or deck and I can't really imagine any significant flexing taking place.

BoatCrazy - I'd hire the professionals if this were anything resembling a large job. 99% of boaters wouldn't even fix these.
 
You don't have to spray the whole area, but you do have to "feather" it in. The hairline crack itself does not have enough surface area for a bond, so you have to open it up. Lets say you used a canopener (the pointy kind, not the circular one :). Lets then say that you had the mythical "perfect" color match. You won't ever have that out of a can directly, even if you order the proper color because gel color fades from day 1, but lets say it is perfect. If you smooge it into the hole and then surface it flat. Then after it dries (if thin enough and it doesn't settle, which it will) you block sand it flat and polish. I guarantee you will be able to see a clear line where the old and new gel meet. If its really out of the way, well okay, but then apparently its not so out of the way that you don't see the hairline crack so part of me wants to second guess that.

What you do with spraying is to first sand an appropriately bigger area around the repair with say 400 grit or so. The definition of appropriate can vary, but at least a few inches (you can do smaller as your skills increase). Then you do the repair as if you were doing what I describe above. Once you have it block sanded, then you spray the gel on top to blend it a true feathering. Then you block sand from 600 on up and then cut/polish. NEVER spray gel on to shiny gel to feather, you MUST have taken the shine off or again, it will never look right and won't blend.

If you want to do it yourself, then start with the filling. Go buy yourself a preval sprayer and use that to spray. Do some homework, but essentially you will thin it with Acetone or Styrene (there are strict limits as to how much you can thin). When spraying, you must have wax in the gel too (and if you order from spectrum or gel coat products inc you can ask them to include it in the can or buy the wax in a separate jar).

Now, by the time you get done, it won't be a perfect job if its your first experience and you will better appreciate the bill. But...if its truly out of the way it might be a good learning experience and will set you up for a better job the next time you have to do a gel repair on something that IS more visible. You won't really save any money once your time is factored in because you won't be efficient. Still....
 
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