Repair a gouge in my gel coat

[Lonesome Drift]

So like an idiot i left my cell phone on the bow of the boat when i jumped aboard at the state police boat ramp and forgot it was there. As i put the boat in gear to enter into the canal it started to slide and again, like an idiot, i dove for the phone to grab it before it went overboard. I saved the phone but in turn i glanced the side of the bulkhead and put a nice gouge in the gelcoat. gouge is about 4 inches long and the width of a pencil. It's above the rub rail and it goes to the glass but the glass is not damaged.

I've heard that Marine Tex is a good repair product for gel coat and that to prep i can just remove any loose debris and hit it w/ acetone to remove any wax/water/dust/impurities. Then apply, let cure, and sand. And it seems like i can get it just about anywhere like the HW store, home depot.

Does anyone have any experience using it? Seems pretty straightforward. Any suggestions on other products to use?

Also, it looks like the gray color has double the compressive strength of the white. Do you guys think this really matters? I know i wont be able to completely conceal the repair but i would at least like to match the color w/ white vs. gray.

Thanks for any info!
Mike

 

[shawnee83]

Sorry for you that happened. Don't use MarineTex, you will not be happy with it. If your boat was an old beater then it would be ok but I suspect your 07 is not. I've only just had my first experience with doing Gel Coat repairs this year so I'm no expert. So see what others say too. It's not that hard to do. If the gouge is deep enough you may need o seal it and build it up some with resin. Gel Coat is easy because if you screw up, you just sand it down and redo it again. It's kinda like working with joint compound on drywall. Build it up and then with a fine grit wet sand paper, sand it smooth with surrounding area. Then you go to compound then wax. Take some pics of it so people can give you the best advise. Good luck!

 

[ktomlinson]

Buy the prematched Parker gelcoat from Cecil Marine. Take a grinding tool and smooth out the gouge. Make sure there are no right angles and the angles that are there are slight. Clean the area with acetone. Mix up the gel coat and let it get just slightly hard. Put in gouge with putty scraper style tool. Smooth out gel as best you can with putty scraper, but remember that you'd rather have too much gel than too little. After it sets up sand it. For your last sanding use something really fine like 1000 grit. Now wax. You shouldn't be able to see where the gouge was. It's not as hard as it seems, I've done a fair amount myself and have been pleased with the results. Any questions just ask.

 

[Lonesome Drift]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll post some before and after photos.

 

[ktomlinson]

Great! Look forward to seeing the project.

 

[Luv2fish]

This post viewtopic.php?f=11&t=13192&hilit=gelcoat+repair&start=0
is a great post with some great video. This helped me a lot in repairing some damage to my boat. Unfortunately it looks like the youtube video is gone. Grouperjim still on this board?

Good luck.

Steve

 

[Brent]

link does not work

 

[Luv2fish]

Not sure why the link to GrouperJim's previous post didn't work and I couldn't find it again.

There are a lot of good video's on Youtube if you just search gelcoat repair but I liked his because it was using a chunk of a Parker boat!

Steve

 

[warthog5]

I've heard that Marine Tex is a good repair product for gel coat

Only if you want it to look like a eyesore.

 

[sailmaster]

After you are sanded smooth with 1000 grit you can buff out the scratches with BLUE plastic Buffing bar availible at a lot of hardware stores by the rouge and white diamind and tripoli bar compound.

Much quicker and esier than 3M super heavy duty