How to do gel coat repair

Hi there,

I accidentally dropped my Fenn Elite today, the damage appears minor, a tiny bit of the seam chipped off as well as a bit of what I think is called gel coat, releaving what looks like weaved glass underneath.

I don't think this warrants sending it to someone to fix it, as there seems to be no real structural damage, looks like paint thats chipped off.

What I'm thinking of doing is mixing some epoxy and just rubbing it on the area, then just putting a sticker over it, but I'm not sure if this is the way to go.

If anybody has some tips I'd much appreciate it.

Thanks,
Nico

Nico,

Your method will probably do the trick, but otherwise head down to your ship chandlery and pickup a small tin of gelcoat and hardener (catalyst). Ask the experts for exactly what you need.

If your ski is white it should match pretty well (you can also get gelcoat colouring but matching anything other than white is very difficult).

It can be a bit runny, so use some tape to catch any runoff. If you're careful, you can also use the tape to cover the repair and 'shape' it to the part of the ski you're fising and leave a realtively smooth result. This means less sanding when the gel-coat has hardened.

Michael

Thanks Michael

Michael

Is it possible to adapt this method just to fix scratches all over the bottom of my boat ?(mostly probably from racks at the club, I have a multitude of scratches running longitudinally along bottom). I have a carbon Mako 6, and would like to smarten boat up before selling it to buy a new boat. Or are there better ways to this ?

Thanks
Carlo

Hi Carlo,

I should start by saying I am not an expert on this stuff ... but I grew up around dinghy sailing so my brother and I patched a few chips here and there over the years.

Fixing the scratches would depend on how deep they are to balance if it's worth fixing at all. Sometimes an attempted fix might draw attention to it more than just leaving as is.

Surface scratches you could try a very fine wet/dry sand paper (or a cutting polish) followed by a finer polish. Sanding will thin the gelcoat a little, so you'd want to be careful.

A deeper scratch could be filled with gelcoat and taped over, but you almost always need to sand it back a little once you remove the tape. You'd then need to polish the area to bring it back to the same gloss as the surrounding area.

It's a fine line to decide between trying to fix it or leave as is ...

You'd laugh if your saw the state of my Red7 Surf 70! I bought it 2nd hand but now it's absolutely punished. Partly my fault (small altercation with an atomatic garage door that nearly broke the ski in 2), but otherwise just from being used as intended.

But it gets me on the water for not much money so that makes me happy ... I'm way past trying to make the scracthes go away!

Michael

I just wrote a long, detailed " How to touch up a gelcoat scratch " article for the 'other' surfski site : )
Should be up pretty soon.

www.surfskiracing.com

aloha,
pog

Just posted the article, great detail and step by step instructions. Thanks Pat!

Chris
SurfskiRacing.com

Thanks Michael!

Carlo

Thanks Pog!

Carlo