Scratches :-(

[maverickofpoole]

I've been polishing the boat today and she hasn't come up to bad all nice and shiny, well one side has. It took me best part of a day to complete that side alone and I've still to wax it

I have a question that I'm hoping you guys might be able to help me with. Although the boat is coming up nice and shiny there are several scratches that are I feel are to deep to polish out so how do I get rid of them. I'm guessing it will be fill sand and polish but I am worried about matching the colour. How can I get a good match, is it just trial and error or is there an art I could learn? All ideas welcome

Thanks in advance

Martin

 

[Marine Reflections]

Hi Martin,

Yes there certainly is an art to learn.

A few tips for you:
Gel coat will be the same colour wet or dry, meaning you get to play around until you find a good enough match for as long as you need.

Use the shaded side of the boat to gain a match, preferably when the sun is at it's highest (not great for this time of the year).

Mask off the yellow stripe as this will mess up your eyes for matching.

Use the hull as a palette, smear a blue base onto the surface with your finger, and see what it needs to take the colour / shade closer.

You will need a few pigments to play with, yellows, greens greys etc, they are not expensive.

Ideally you should start with clear and add pigment, but this may prove an issue when starting out. It may be easier for you to start out with a blue base and add a few pigments to tint and shade accordingly.

If you start out with Ral 5009 Azure blue it should be a good start, but just a quick guess from your pics, it may well be totally different in the flesh.

Can you get a Ral code or better still order gel coat from the dealership?

Expect to be totally frustrated and spend a fair while before finding the match, it is a slightly bit translucent which make matters a little more tricky.


Looking lovely by the way, nice work!

 

[maverickofpoole]

Thank you very much.

Will make a few phone calls on Monday to see if I can get the correct colour failing that I shall get myself down to our local supplier and pick up some gel and colourants. Should I cock it up (quite likely ) I'll get an expert like yourself in to sort it out

Martin

 

[gjgm]

If you are going to fill, then the scratch needs to be made into a V, so there is enough surface area for the gel to adhere to. Havnt used it myself, but someone said an old fashioned tin opener, sharpened, works well- I think I have just used a sharp stanley knife, but obviously stay within the scratch !
A bit of 3M tape either side so you dont smear gel all over the place, but 0-5 degrees isnt exactly ideal gel repair weather. Take the hardened gel back with wet and dry grades(320-1200),using the 3M tape as your protective strips, then, remove tapes, maybe some fine wet and dry, then compound and polish.On a flat-ish surface it really is reasonably easy, but on a compound curve I have never managed to do it myself, and called in the pro.
You wont see a close-colour mismatch on the water, and a close one isnt even that obvious
up on the hard. Close is usually close enough, I think.

 

[Elessar]

I've been polishing the boat today and she hasn't come up to bad all nice and shiny, well one side has. It took me best part of a day to complete that side alone and I've still to wax it

I have a question that I'm hoping you guys might be able to help me with. Although the boat is coming up nice and shiny there are several scratches that are I feel are to deep to polish out so how do I get rid of them. I'm guessing it will be fill sand and polish but I am worried about matching the colour. How can I get a good match, is it just trial and error or is there an art I could learn? All ideas welcome

Thanks in advance

Martin

remember it is gelcoat not paint, you can sand then polish out alarmingly deep scratches. Just how deep are they?

 

[maverickofpoole]

remember it is gelcoat not paint, you can sand then polish out alarmingly deep scratches. Just how deep are they?

Well most would probably sand out but one in particular is about a metre long probably 1-1.5 millimetres deep by about 10 or 12 mil across on a flat panel. Managed to do that this year trying to take the pontoon with us jeez I hate wind

Thanks for the reply

Martin

 

[maverickofpoole]

@ gjgm

Thanks for your reply all noted

Martin

 

[Marine Reflections]

Just a word of caution on deep scratches being sanded out.

You could create a ripple or dent that would show up once polished, in order to avoid this a much larger area would have to be sanded with a block in order for it to be a uniformed profile.
Not only that, but you could end up with a patch of very thin gel.

A rule of thumb is if you can easily catch your nail on the scratch it needs filling.

 

[Jurgen]

remember it is gelcoat not paint, you can sand then polish out alarmingly deep scratches. Just how deep are they?

Have been filling, sanding, compounding &polishing Evenstar's today in readiness for new upholstery. Luckily Evenstar's is still bright white despite being 15 years old.
Well worth the effort though!

 

[BartW]

Hi Martin,

I had a small tin of blue (and white) gelcoat delivered with the boat when new,
I'm sure that you will get one when you send a mail to mr Karnic,
or to his export manager in Austria, (do you have the e-mail adresses ? send pm if not)

will not be exactly the same colour as your 5...6 (?) yo gelcoat,
but most probably closer then what you can mix starting from any other blue.

keep us updated about the end result, have some small scratches to handle myself.

 

[BartW]

A rule of thumb is if you can easily catch your nail on the scratch it needs filling.

would you fill it with gelcoat or would you use a real filler product first ?
sorry for ignorance, I'm a novice on this

 

[jfm]

would you fill it with gelcoat or would you use a real filler product first ?
sorry for ignorance, I'm a novice on this

just gelcoat

 

[maverickofpoole]

As an update:

I have been in touch with our local importer and he has said that the colour/material is no longer supplied off the shelf however it can be ordered from some Italian company but is hideously expensive as they do not normally do small quantities. Re: a RAL/colour number, Karnic gave the uk importer a number but it did not relate to any colour system known to man. My supplier did however say he may be getting some in for an insurance job in the new year and if there is any left over I can have some so I will wait and see.

Bart as JFM says just Gel coat

 

[Marine Reflections]

Martin,
Your gel coat would have been supplied by Euroresins.
It would probably have been Neogel ve 8393 (spray)
Euroresins use Ral codes and communicate them.

Ral blues are 5000 to 5026 but may be a combination of two or more ral codes hence the part no not being simple to cross reference.
You could try contacting marco.locatelli@euroresins.com in Italy he is the tech and probably the man in the know about your shade, if it was a custom Eurotint shade or if it translates into a ral code.

The problem is, the original colour would have changed sat on your boat due to exposure, it would need tweaking for invisibility anyway.

That's if you wish to pursue it further.
I think you would do worse than choose the best base you can from the previous link and have an art day on the side of your topside experimenting with some pigments. You won't be able to do any damage trying to find the right shade and only be out of pocket £20-£30 even if you fail.

Agree with gjgm, if you get it close it may well be close enough for you to be happy with.

 

[Marine Reflections]

would you fill it with gelcoat or would you use a real filler product first ?
sorry for ignorance, I'm a novice on this

Yes pretty much just gel coat, nearly all of the time with scratches.

If the scratch is even deeper and has removed fibreglass (the main bit behind the gel coat) then it's good practice to replenish this before adding the gel coat.

If you add too much gel coat to fill a deep one instead of fibreglassing, the gel may shrink and crack.

I was called out to rectify this one recently, you can see they have added to much gel and used it as a filler, possibly too much catalyst, my moneys on both, going by the rest of the repairs.

DIY?

I'm afraid not, it was from a charging professional!

 

[maverickofpoole]

Martin,
Your gel coat would have been supplied by Euroresins.
It would probably have been Neogel ve 8393 (spray)
Euroresins use Ral codes and communicate them.

Ral blues are 5000 to 5026 but may be a combination of two or more ral codes hence the part no not being simple to cross reference.
You could try contacting marco.locatelli@euroresins.com in Italy he is the tech and probably the man in the know about your shade, if it was a custom Eurotint shade or if it translates into a ral code.

The problem is, the original colour would have changed sat on your boat due to exposure, it would need tweaking for invisibility anyway.

That's if you wish to pursue it further.
I think you would do worse than choose the best base you can from the previous link and have an art day on the side of your topside experimenting with some pigments. You won't be able to do any damage trying to find the right shade and only be out of pocket £20-£30 even if you fail.

Agree with gjgm, if you get it close it may well be close enough for you to be happy with.

Thank you, very much appreciated.

I have been thinking about this and two boats ago I had a Hardy 17 another blue coloured hull and can now vividly remember the nightmare I had dealing with scratches on that. Running a decorating company makes me overly fussy about finishing so to save pain to myself I think I'll wait until the spring and if my supplier doesn't get any of the correct colour gel I will probably ask a professional like yourself to come in and spend a day on my topsides. Do you come to Poole?

Martin

 

[maverickofpoole]

So I have had a reply from Karnic about the gel coat colour which is stated as:

REINCHHOLD s.r.l. Blue Gelcoat, Item Code: NGA70005S

I have googled this and can find no information has anyone got any ideas?

Martin

 

[Geoffs]

As an update:

I have been in touch with our local importer and he has said that the colour/material is no longer supplied off the shelf however it can be ordered from some Italian company but is hideously expensive as they do not normally do small quantities. Re: a RAL/colour number, Karnic gave the uk importer a number but it did not relate to any colour system known to man. My supplier did however say he may be getting some in for an insurance job in the new year and if there is any left over I can have some so I will wait and see.

Bart as JFM says just Gel coat

Have you tried the GRP place by Poole Bridge. They have a selection of gel coat touch up kits and have a perfect match for my blue gel coat - Oxford blue.

 

[maverickofpoole]

Have you tried the GRP place by Poole Bridge. They have a selection of gel coat touch up kits and have a perfect match for my blue gel coat - Oxford blue.

Thanks and that's where I would go if I new the colour. BTW I drove past there today and see a notice saying they had moved, don't know where to

Martin

 

[Marine Reflections]

Ah, ok so it's not Euroresins then, but REINCHHOLD S.R.L

REINCHHOLD s.r.l. Blue Gelcoat, Item Code: NGA70005S

They are a branch of REINCHHOLD, based in Italy, so this makes sense. The company history is interesting, helping out Henry ford in the paint dept, got these folks to thank for being able to order another colour other than black it would seem.

They do have a contact over here but they haven't been able to help as is the wrong dept for S.R.L. I have sent an e-mail to a technical guy in the states to see if he can cross reference it to a more readable number or code for you.
Not sure what NGA is yet, '70005' would be the colour.
The 'S' on the end i'm pretty sure just means spray as apposed to brush for application.

The more I find out about this gel the better it gets, you have some seriously good gel coat there, even if it is a little hard to cross reference! I would be happy to pop down to Poole next year when it's a bit warmer if you have no joy yourself, have to update the thread though of course.