Gelshield- any good?

[paul]

I've got a 3 year old Moody which I'm thinking about epoxying. My thinking is that providing I let it dry out a bit, say 3 months or so, applying a good expoxy barrier should usefully stave off the onslought of the pox. Any one got any views on which type of expoxy is best? International's Gelshield looks like a reasonable product??

 

[lezgar]

www.yachtsurvey.com have information about osmosis

I am not very sure about the qualities of epoxy. Is not totally waterproof but enough for avoid the natural dry out of the hull and have powerfull solvents that will damage the gel coat (you can not aply gelshield 200 to a hull without gel coat, applying gelshied instead that have no solvents but is very harmful and difficult to apply)

About dry out you will need a dry and hot climate and ventilation inside of the boat.
If the hull is ok after three years there are no reason for don't continue ok and if isn't in good conditions (delamination, pox ...) epoxy will be a worst solution because the mixture of water and estirene will continue inside of the hull.
Also if you want to epoxy you will need to remove all the antifoul with a big chance of damage the gelcoat.

 

[tonyleigh]

When I bought my present boat 6 yrs ago it was 8yrs old. I stripped to gelcoat and used Hullguard which was applied at the end of the winter lay-up just before a fortuitously mild and dry Easter. Hullguard is less temperature critical than Gelshield (10c). Did excellent job and this Autumn close scruting following lift-out still shows no suspicion of any problems. (I do lift out October - April each year so hull does dry for 6mths anyway). I understand Gelshield has given comparable satisfaction to others but the temperature requirement has required keeping the hull warm inside a canvas tent during application and curing. I am also aware of a few horror stories but believe these result from poor preparation / application conditions.

 

[vyv_cox]

Gelshield 200

International's current Gelshield 200 is specified down to 5 C.

 

[tonyleigh]

Re: Gelshield 200

Oops! Clearly I'm way out of date. I'm sure when I was deciding it was something like 15 for Gelshield but things have moved on! Many thanks.