Quandary
Well-Known Member
Our glossy white hull gelcoat got some long deepish scratches in one of the locks at Muirtown when one of the lock keepers misunderstood that I wanted my stern pulled in for a second to set the bow out and continued to hold it until the fender ran up over the top of the sandstone wall (lesson - fat round fenders ride up much sooner than cylindrical ones).
Just finished what I regard as an invisible repair so thought I would recount how it went.
Washed the hull with water and Flash, rinsed, degreased the area with a rag with some acetone rubbing well into the scratches, acetone dries almost instantly. Mixed some gelcoat filler, I am very lucky that the standard white in a tube is a good match. Applied with stiff plastic spatula squeezing hard over scratches, left it to go off for an hour. I put a nice new blade in my Bahco Pull Scraper and drawing it lightly and carefully across the scratches at about 45 degrees removed all the surplus new gelcoat filler from the area. It comes away in thin flakes like rice paper and does not scratch or dull the old surface and is also much faster than abrading. There was still a pinhole in one scratch and a slight surface depression made another deeper one still visible, so I applied gelcoat filler again and scraped off a second time. Because I had used the scraper without marking the gloss I did not need to use medium wet and dry but just polished the area lightly with 1200 grade used with plenty of soapy water. Dried off and then gave it a good rub with a rag with Farecla GRP compound, then a rub with another rag and Tcut. Finished off by rubbing it twice with 3M cleaner wax polish which is mildly abrasive.
Well chuffed, because while the boat is now over 5 years old it had not got scratched until this year and the gloss is still good (I wax it on lift out and before launching).
Using the very sharp hard blade to remove the surplus was an innovation but meant that avoiding rougher abrasives considerably reduced the amount of polishing needed to get the original gloss back, this was aided because the older gelcoat appeared to be much harder than the new stuff, however it might be much more difficult to do if dealing with a large deeply scuffed area rather than three parallel scratches. There is also no doubt that repairs are much easier on white hulls.
Just finished what I regard as an invisible repair so thought I would recount how it went.
Washed the hull with water and Flash, rinsed, degreased the area with a rag with some acetone rubbing well into the scratches, acetone dries almost instantly. Mixed some gelcoat filler, I am very lucky that the standard white in a tube is a good match. Applied with stiff plastic spatula squeezing hard over scratches, left it to go off for an hour. I put a nice new blade in my Bahco Pull Scraper and drawing it lightly and carefully across the scratches at about 45 degrees removed all the surplus new gelcoat filler from the area. It comes away in thin flakes like rice paper and does not scratch or dull the old surface and is also much faster than abrading. There was still a pinhole in one scratch and a slight surface depression made another deeper one still visible, so I applied gelcoat filler again and scraped off a second time. Because I had used the scraper without marking the gloss I did not need to use medium wet and dry but just polished the area lightly with 1200 grade used with plenty of soapy water. Dried off and then gave it a good rub with a rag with Farecla GRP compound, then a rub with another rag and Tcut. Finished off by rubbing it twice with 3M cleaner wax polish which is mildly abrasive.
Well chuffed, because while the boat is now over 5 years old it had not got scratched until this year and the gloss is still good (I wax it on lift out and before launching).
Using the very sharp hard blade to remove the surplus was an innovation but meant that avoiding rougher abrasives considerably reduced the amount of polishing needed to get the original gloss back, this was aided because the older gelcoat appeared to be much harder than the new stuff, however it might be much more difficult to do if dealing with a large deeply scuffed area rather than three parallel scratches. There is also no doubt that repairs are much easier on white hulls.
