Gelcoat issues

[DmaxJC_ski]

Anyone ever attempted your own cosmetic repairs with success? Just received a quote for a 1/2 dozen cracks..... :s Ouch!

[BlueSki]

Bite down and have it done right. Unless you have the time, this is probably money well spent.

[oldjeep]

I've done a few good dock scratches with spectrum kits. Comes out fine. Cracks indicate some real issues though, where are they?

[Zoro957]

I've used the Spectrum repair kits a couple of times with great success but for scratches, not cracks.

[BraceMaker]

This stuff works - you say cosmetic - http://www.magicezy.com/products/hairline-fix/

 

If you have things like fine cracks in the Gel around window frames and such where there is no structural reason to repair and no thought that you had hard impact damage I'd give this a go.

 

Otherwise Gel repairs generally mean you want to grind the area out plus feather the ground area out over a good size so that you can blend the gel out. So you take and put deep scratches into the factory gel in an area and then fill those scratches with new gel and sand it smooth and level. Fun stuff.

[DmaxJC_ski]

@oldjeep typical places in the malibus, screw holes, bow vents, one under the platform.

[oldjeep]

If you fix them make sure to chamfer the holes that the cracks started at so it doesn't re-crack.

[DmaxJC_ski]

Those issues are over and above the damage on the bottom from my lift during some bad storms we had in August

 

[BraceMaker]

Those are chunks. Factor doing 3-4" around em to blend in the color. Anytime I've tried to keep it small it's very visible when done.

[oldjeep]

The second 2 don't look too bad, the first one it is hard to tell if the glass was damaged as well. Make sure to check that well to see if it needs additional repair before just spackling gel coat over it.

[DmaxJC_ski]

There are about 5 of those down each rib on either side, looks like someone took a ball peen hammer and hit it. Insurance is taking care of those, it's the hairline cracks on the deck I want to do myself

[A_B]

My boat ended up nosing into the shoreline with some random rock gouges several years back. I filled with a kit for my specific color. Let harden, then block wet sanded with various grades of paper to very fine, then power buffed out, and it looked pretty decent. It was in a great place for me to hide my amateur work though, on the bottom front of the hull, so hard to really see. From standing and looking at it, no one could tell.