Gel coat colour - does this mean anything to anyone?

Whitelighter

Whitelighter

Well-Known Member
Joined
4 Apr 2005
Messages
13,977
Location
Looking out of the window
Visit site
So I have someone booked to go over Seralia and fix 22 years of dings.
Ferretti boats aren't white so I sled them what the colour was.
There response is:

GELCOAT BEIGE 484 DSM.

This mean nothing to my GRP guy.
Anyone know what this might mean - I assume the 484 is a colour code but we don't know on which system
 
The paint shop in Antibes has a bucket of gel coat samples you can borrow to match the colour, maybe somewhere near st carles can do the same. The tricky thing is that your gel will have yellowed, so you may not want to match the original colour, but new gel coat will yellow at a faster rate than the old, so you don't want to match the current colour either! I imagine it's less of a problem with the creamy Ferretti gel though.
 
If there's something I know nothing about of all boat-related stuff, it's gelcoat - for obvious reasons! :D
But DSM is a big chemical company, and IIRC they have a paints and coatings division.
So, maybe the "DSM" part of that code is just the supplier name...?
Just a thought.
 
Nick_H said:
The paint shop in Antibes has a bucket of gel coat samples you can borrow to match the colour, maybe somewhere near st carles can do the same. The tricky thing is that your gel will have yellowed, so you may not want to match the original colour, but new gel coat will yellow at a faster rate than the old, so you don't want to match the current colour either! I imagine it's less of a problem with the creamy Ferretti gel though.
Click to expand...

Yes, we are anticipating having to mix a colour and I'm bringing some removable panels back with me this month.
The GRP guys says though it would still be better to start with the original colour and tone it down/up rather than start with a random beige.

If that is the RAL number then that would be good though I think RAL are 4 digit.
 
Last edited:
I've just this week had the same issue with matching the cream shade on my 10yr old Azimut, the yard's resident gel coat wizard mixed a teeny bit of yellow and a dot of green with a white base and got to the shade pretty quickly. We didn't need enough to warrant flying it in from Italy.
 
Whitelighter said:
If that is the RAL number then that would be good though I think RAL are 4 digit.
Click to expand...

Yes RAL numbers are generally 4 digit and yes DSM is a large German chemical co who do supply resins but exactly what 484 DSM is or where you can buy it I dont know. I would be very careful about allowing somebody to try to match the Ferretti gelcoat colour. As you well know it is a specific cream colour and it is difficult to match. I made the mistake of allowing a yard to carry out some minor gelcoat repairs on my last Ferretti and they didn't do a great job of matching it so the repairs were visibly different to the existing gelcoat if you looked carefully. IMHO you should try to get the right gelcoat colour even though your existing gelcoat will have faded a bit
 
MapisM said:
They used to be NL based, actually.
But I might have lost the plot lately...
...not that it matters for Jez, anyway! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

German, Dutch they're all the same to us now that we've voted to leave;)
 
Whitelighter said:
So I have someone booked to go over Seralia and fix 22 years of dings.
Ferretti boats aren't white so I sled them what the colour was.
There response is:

GELCOAT BEIGE 484 DSM.

This mean nothing to my GRP guy.
Anyone know what this might mean - I assume the 484 is a colour code but we don't know on which system
Click to expand...

Jez, I have the gelcoat colour ref in my Azi handbook. Can't recall what it is, but not too dissimilar to your code. Actually a good gelcoat wizard will mix the colour to suit the boat.
 
It looks like there has been some realignment in this industry with DSM merging their gelcoat biz with BÜFA Gelcoat Plus who then sold to:

http://www.euroresins.com/products/gelcoat-and-topcoats

Every boat I've built I had a custom gelcoat mixed to match an auto oem paint code (no one spends more on color than the auto companies) which can be cross referenced with other coatings (e.g. Porsche GP White to gelcoat then duPont epoxy for floors).

These chemical companies have "color labs" that are very helpful,and resourceful. Try locating them and call or shoot them an e-mail.
 
Might have missed this but how old is she?
Much more than three or four years and you might find the original colour will no longer match.
In fact I find that the colour often changes as you move up the hull/coachroof, the higher the more bleached.

I used to mix my own colours, would take me 40 minutes or so and I pretty much always got close enough for the customer to not spot the repair unless I pointed it out but I'd only nail it 40% of the time.

These days I chip off an inch square in the area and send it down to a company in Ipswich and they colour match it for me using a spectrometer.
 
Javelin said:
Might have missed this but how old is she?
Much more than three or four years and you might find the original colour will no longer match.
In fact I find that the colour often changes as you move up the hull/coachroof, the higher the more bleached.

I used to mix my own colours, would take me 40 minutes or so and I pretty much always got close enough for the customer to not spot the repair unless I pointed it out but I'd only nail it 40% of the time.

These days I chip off an inch square in the area and send it down to a company in Ipswich and they colour match it for me using a spectrometer.
Click to expand...

Can you give us the contact details of the company please?
 
petem said:
Is UV fading as apparent with the Ferretti / Azimut cream than on a white boat I wonder? If it is less apparent then Jez just needs the factory colour.

Don't Ferretti have a UK agent that would know?
Click to expand...

Boat is 20 years old, if gel coat color has not changed Ferretti needs to be building space ships not boats ;)
A good gel coat man will make it unrecognizable. If you do not know the guys it is good they show some works repairs they did.
 
I understand the GRP will have faded - I have an excellent GRP repairer doing the work. The GRP repairer has asked if I could get the original colour so we can start mixing from there rather than an arbitrary beige.

The answer from Ferretti came via Ventura who are the UK dealer and extremely helpful.

The exiting colour plus some panels I'm removing from the boat will allow us to do w load of work here so we can limit what we need to pallet and ship to spain
 
So a very clever British guy who comes to do a neiboring Fairline 39 Targa does it differently.

He peels a tiny bits of gel-coat from the area he wants to do, takes it in a laboratory in the UK, and then matches the color in other area from there onwards.

Btw the name of the British guy is Anthony Harrington and does really a nice job.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top