P4Paul
Well-Known Member
As the title suggests, this post is about a Prestige 34 owned by a friend of mine and berthed in a marina on the Hamble.
About two months ago, some scroatbag decided that rather than pay for a new starboard 'A Pillar' trim panel, they would use a screwdriver (at least thats what the gel damage suggests) to lever off the one fitted to my friends boat and leave my friend with the issue of sorting out a replacement item.
(If you have just had someone replace this trim panel on your boat or know someone who has just had one fitted, I would love to find out who did the work and where they got the part from).
Having been in contact with the local dealers and discovered that the trim is unobtainable, my friend who knows my history/background asked if I could help him out by making a new panel.
So below are some photos as I thought you might be interested in how it went.
To start with:
The port side trim
The Starboard side after the scroatbag had visited, you can't make out the gel damage in the photo but there are chips in the gel where it looks like a screwdriver has been used to lever the trim off.
So I get to work and take some measurements and make some templates
and then head home to the garage to make up a buck out of some foam block. A buck is nothing more than the shape I want to end up with, which I will then use to take a lightweight (splash) mould from.
a bit of cutting and shaping
Some lightweight facing from woven fibreglass and polyester resin (polyester is much easier to sand than epoxy!)
Some lightweight backing to prevent the buck from pulling out of shape as the fibreglass facing cures
and I ended up with a buck which was close enough at this point to use to make a single use splash moulding
I forgot to take any photos of the lightweight splash mould (apologies!). But once the mould was released from the buck, I sanded down the moulding surface. Any low spots or pinholes on the surface of the buck will become high spots on the mould, so sometimes it is easier and quicker to rework the splash mould rather than make the buck 100% perfect.
While waiting for the mould to cure I mixed up some gelcoat to match the colour of the boat and then laid up up the actual panel. After 24 hours I popped out the panel which looked like this
you can see pencil marks circling a couple of blemishes which I repaired. I covered the repairs with sellotape to ensure the gel surface cures. Unlike resin, gelcoat does not surface cure when in contact with air. You can mix in styrene wax to the gel (which is then referred to as flow coat) and the wax floats to the surface and foams a barrier between the gel and the air, but, I don't like using wax for repairs on new panels as I believe it makes the repair noticeable in the longer term.
I gave the panel a final sand to straighten and smooth the edges and then went back to the Hamble to fit the end result to the boat.
Most importantly, my friend is happy with the end result, but understandable he remains well hacked off that he required the panel in the first place.
Just in-case the scroatbag who stole the original trim panel is reading this; hopefully this post goes to prove that there is no need what-so-ever to go and steal a replacement from another boat. :encouragement:
About two months ago, some scroatbag decided that rather than pay for a new starboard 'A Pillar' trim panel, they would use a screwdriver (at least thats what the gel damage suggests) to lever off the one fitted to my friends boat and leave my friend with the issue of sorting out a replacement item.
(If you have just had someone replace this trim panel on your boat or know someone who has just had one fitted, I would love to find out who did the work and where they got the part from).
Having been in contact with the local dealers and discovered that the trim is unobtainable, my friend who knows my history/background asked if I could help him out by making a new panel.
So below are some photos as I thought you might be interested in how it went.
To start with:
The port side trim
The Starboard side after the scroatbag had visited, you can't make out the gel damage in the photo but there are chips in the gel where it looks like a screwdriver has been used to lever the trim off.
So I get to work and take some measurements and make some templates
and then head home to the garage to make up a buck out of some foam block. A buck is nothing more than the shape I want to end up with, which I will then use to take a lightweight (splash) mould from.
a bit of cutting and shaping
Some lightweight facing from woven fibreglass and polyester resin (polyester is much easier to sand than epoxy!)
Some lightweight backing to prevent the buck from pulling out of shape as the fibreglass facing cures
and I ended up with a buck which was close enough at this point to use to make a single use splash moulding
I forgot to take any photos of the lightweight splash mould (apologies!). But once the mould was released from the buck, I sanded down the moulding surface. Any low spots or pinholes on the surface of the buck will become high spots on the mould, so sometimes it is easier and quicker to rework the splash mould rather than make the buck 100% perfect.
While waiting for the mould to cure I mixed up some gelcoat to match the colour of the boat and then laid up up the actual panel. After 24 hours I popped out the panel which looked like this
you can see pencil marks circling a couple of blemishes which I repaired. I covered the repairs with sellotape to ensure the gel surface cures. Unlike resin, gelcoat does not surface cure when in contact with air. You can mix in styrene wax to the gel (which is then referred to as flow coat) and the wax floats to the surface and foams a barrier between the gel and the air, but, I don't like using wax for repairs on new panels as I believe it makes the repair noticeable in the longer term.
I gave the panel a final sand to straighten and smooth the edges and then went back to the Hamble to fit the end result to the boat.
Most importantly, my friend is happy with the end result, but understandable he remains well hacked off that he required the panel in the first place.
Just in-case the scroatbag who stole the original trim panel is reading this; hopefully this post goes to prove that there is no need what-so-ever to go and steal a replacement from another boat. :encouragement:
.
