Coloured Gelcoat
Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: General
Forum Name: Repair & maintenance
Forum Discription: Questions & tips on the subject
URL: http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10642
Printed Date: 14 May 25 at 12:59pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.665y - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Coloured Gelcoat
Posted By: rb_stretch
Subject: Coloured Gelcoat
Date Posted: 14 Jan 13 at 4:53pm
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Got a new to me Albacore that has a deep blue hull and grey deck. Some gelcoat works needs doing on both the hull and the deck and tempted to do it, but have no idea how you create coloured gelcoat to match. Trawled the chandlery sites, but can't find any obvious products to help, so wondering how others do coloured gelcoat work. If it's all too difficult I'll have to send it into to be professionally repaired, but money is not quite so flowing these days, so want to investigate DIY first.
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Replies:
Posted By: pondmonkey
Date Posted: 14 Jan 13 at 4:56pm
fill it with ding stick... chicks dig scars. ------------- |
Posted By: JimC
Date Posted: 14 Jan 13 at 5:37pm
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Gel coat pigments are widely available, notably in small quantities at most Chandlers from Blue Gee at truly horrendous prices.
The challenge is colour matching the gel coat on the boat with the pigments you can find. If you are lucky then the manufacturer of the boat will still be trading and may have supplies of correctly coloured gel coat. If so then no matter how atrocious their gel coat price over what your chandler is selling it is still worth buying it! If you don't have that luxury, well... Colour matching is a skill I had twenty five years ago and no longer possess: you need to keep in practice. Its probably easiest to put the boat on a trailer, take it to a chandler with a generous colour range of pigments on a sunny day, and with the shop's cooperation the pots outside until you find the one that's the nearest match and accept that the scratches will show a bit. Don't attempt to take a bit of boat into the shop and match under artificial light. Blue Gee have a lot of colours, so if you find a shop with a really good range you may well get pretty close. If you are really keen to get an exact match you will have to buy a selection of pots of different colours and practice, practice, practice on odd scraps until you have a mix that's close enough to satisfy you. You will need to be doing this long enough to acquire the skill of colour matching. Of course if you have a friend who posesses this skill then you can attempt to round them up and get them to help... It may take a lot of beer... And before you ask, I learned recently with my Moth that I have lost the skill... |
Posted By: Jack Sparrow
Date Posted: 14 Jan 13 at 5:45pm
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[TUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9_mybTevss&playnext=1&list=PL260280DD6B1D2331&feature=results_main[/TUBE] ------------- http://www.uk3-7class.org/index.html" rel="nofollow - Farr 3.7 Class Website https://www.facebook.com/groups/1092602470772759/" rel="nofollow - Farr 3.7 Building - Facebook Group |
Posted By: Jack Sparrow
Date Posted: 14 Jan 13 at 5:46pm
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and don't do it when it's cold. It don't work. ------------- http://www.uk3-7class.org/index.html" rel="nofollow - Farr 3.7 Class Website https://www.facebook.com/groups/1092602470772759/" rel="nofollow - Farr 3.7 Building - Facebook Group |
Posted By: rb_stretch
Date Posted: 14 Jan 13 at 6:49pm
You read my mind Jim. Think I'll pop down to Guildford Marine to see what they have (when they are open as they seem to be closed for 2 weeks). On that subject, does anyone know any good chandleries in Surrey. I only know Guildford Marine or Purple at Datchet, but they have a very small stock. On the scars front I've already got 4 women in my life, not sure I could handle more! ------------- |
Posted By: rb_stretch
Date Posted: 14 Jan 13 at 6:56pm
Thanks for the videos. Looking at them now. ------------- |
Posted By: JimC
Date Posted: 14 Jan 13 at 9:14pm
For that sort of thing a motor boat or yacht chandler might be better. Thames Ditton Marina and the chandlers on the Bridge at Walton are both listed as stockists by Blue Gee. http://www.bluegee.co.uk/uploaded/downloads/Blue%20Gee%20Product%20Catalogue%2012.pdf - Blue Gee's catalogue claims they do 83 different colours so you probably won't find a chandlers that stocks 'em all |
Posted By: sargesail
Date Posted: 14 Jan 13 at 9:57pm
| One thing I learnt - make sure you are matching the gelcoat to a bit of boat that is in the condition you want it in....in the past I have worked on old boats' gelcoat (yep same mistake more than once) then treated with Fareclas only to find I should have matched a whole light lighter. Doh! So if you are planning to tidy the area up do it first, then do the repair area again when the job's done. |
Posted By: rb_stretch
Date Posted: 16 Jan 13 at 1:22pm
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Jim, thanks for the tip about Bridge Marine. I spoke to the guy who repairs boats there and he basically said that I would never get a good colour match because the damage spans the transom and underside. The stern is significantly lighter due to UV exposure. In the end he offered me some blue gelcoat that looked close, hardener, wax and acetone from his industrial quantities decanted into old jam jars all for £12. When the weather warms up I will do it myself. ------------- |
Posted By: JimC
Date Posted: 16 Jan 13 at 4:40pm
Sounds like a good result to me... You'd have spent three times that or more on pigments alone attempting a colour match yourself. |