Gelcoat repairs - what to do / How best to do it?

[Canopy Locked]

If I can get the pics to attach, the following pictures show the sides of a boat I'm considering buying - It's clearly been unloved and has multiple scuffs and scratches. There are not so many actual dings that I can see, the bow area being the worst which will need some glassing. Generally the issues appear cosmetic

I have no experience of restoring this level of damage and I was wondering if anyone could give some advice or point me in the direction of a good resource that would help. If it helps with a course of action, the boat itself is not huge value. Thanks in advance

 

[Hunterlees]

Have a look at videos on you tube from “boatworkstoday”

 

[Concerto]

Dark blue hulls, along with red, are known to be bad colours for a bloom to form, and you seem to have this in photo 1. The real way to repair these scratches will be to fill and paint the hull, a gel coat repair will be almost impossible to get done well.

The scratches will need light grinding out to clean the surface and then fill with Terosan Gel Coat Filler. This is white, but you could add a colour to get close to the hull colour. Once the filler has been sanded smooth to the hull, sand the rest of the hull. It is now ready for primer and undercoat to be applied, followed by a top coat. This is something you can do yourself, but is time consuming and best done in the summer months.

 

[peteK]

Most of those can be polished out using various grades of wet and dry,you may still end up with some deeper ones which you may decide to leave, I am assuming that's blue gelcoat and not paint.

 

[wallacebob]

Looks like a motorboat? I would ignore the side scuffs just now , unless you want to paint large areas. The bow damage needs filled, then maybe a 100mm strip of biaxial cloth to strengthen if it’s had multiple collisions. That will need painting, but wArm weather job, undercover if possible. It doesn’t look like there is much depth of gel coat to cut back, so polish carefully, if you do.

 

[bignick]

Have a look at videos on you tube from “boatworkstoday”

I followed these videos to match off-white gel coat and it worked a treat. He recommends getting a Pantone colour chart for solid colours. Well worth a look.

 

[Canopy Locked]

Thanks for all the advice - Boatworkstoday is a great resource and have subscribed for future reference.

Have decided to walk away from this one - the hull damage was not the only issue - simply uneconomic to deal with - plenty more in the sea.