Textured deck repair.

[davidpbo]

Hi Folks.

I wish to do a repair on my deck. I have some cracking, I believe I have sorted out the reason for it and wish to repair the top surface. It has a moulded in texture and a cored balsa cored deck although I suspect in the area of the repair it may be something harder. My plan is to mask and smooth the texture somewhat, hopefully without going to fibres and either epoxy a strip of woven fibreglass over the smoothed area or simple paint epoxy over the area (neatly), then sand it and paint several coats of gelcoat over that and sand, T cut and polish it.

I have West systsms105 resin, 205 hardener, woven tape, pumps mixing containers etc.

I bought Plastimo Gel coat filler thinking it was gel coat, it is a Polyester resin presumably similar to the Plastic Padding Gel coat filler tubes. I don’t think the product I have is what I want to do the repair above, will it do or do I need something else?.

Is Gelcoat always Polyester based or can it be epoxy based.

The area to be treated will be about 6 inches long by 4 inches wide.

I did grind out the minor cracks and fill them with Gelcoat filler a few years ago but because of the textured surface it was not really possible to polish the area and now it is retaining dirt and looks a mess, an alternative solutions to the repair suggested above might be to clean it up somehow. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience of effecting a repair on a textured deck?

The boat is a 1989 Jeanneau Tonic. The Gelcoat is white (some were a creamy colour). Could anyone give an indication as to what products and pigments might have been used in the gelcoat and how I might match it given the age of the boat?

Any other advice and thoughts would be greatly appreciated.


Many thanks


David

 

[savageseadog]

Try Glasplies in Southport for what you need.
You can reproduce the deck texture my making an mould with a silicone rubber. There are epoxy gelcoats but I haven't heard of them being used for repairs, the problem would be in matching the texture.

 

[Avocet]

Someone else on here can probably advise better but I'm not sure the gelcoat will stick to the epoxy. It works the other way round - wet epoxy sticks very well to cured gelcoat but I don't think wet gelcoat sticks to cured epoxy.

 

[andy_wilson]

The proper way to do it is to make a mould of the textured finish. If it a patch of non-slip you might have an identical area on the other side deck f'rinstance.

Normally then you would repair from the outside in but this wouldn't apply in this case. Perhaps you could grind the area flat and clean it up. Then fill a very shallow impression of the non-slip area (the mould, with release agent applied) with colourmatched gel coat. Then turn it over and place it in the required position.

 

[davidpbo]

It is the materials required to make and match the gelcoat which I am unsure about as much as anything.