While cleaning the hull of my boat last weekend, I noticed 2 dings in the gelcoat. One is on the bottom on the edge of one of the steps (stepped hull) and he other is where the side of the hull and bottom meet. I don’t know a lot about fiberglass so wanted some expert opinions. Should such a “ding” be repaired and if so, how would I go about doing this? It looks worse than it is (I think) because the photo is a close up. In actuality, the biggest ding is only about 1" x 1".
Over time water can start to absorb into the glass matt you see underneath the gelcoat ding. Best bet is to get a small gelcoat repair kit at west marine or such and patch it, pretty easy to do really, just follow the directions on it. At the least I’d put a thin smear of caulking, 5200 or some marine tex or similar over the damaged area to seal it. Takes quite a while for water to penetrate the glass matt under the ding, but in time it will.
pro tip------- forgo the sander and take a thin piece of plastic film ie: ziploc bag cut open and after filling the ding lay the plastic smoothly over the wet patching material and use a plastic squeege to smooth it over the patching material and leave on untill dry then peel off plastic and won’t need to sand and will be a bit glossy as well.
I used the Marine Tex and it worked great. I sanded it down starting with 150 grit and worked it down to 800 wet and it looks just about like the surrounding hull does. Thanks for the tip.
Yes, I had not really thought about water getting between the gelcoat and the fiberglass. Glad I asked for some input. Now that I see how easy it is to repair, I will fix them as soon as I get them…I am sure there will be more.
Can get a pigment match kit to match up the color or some of the boat builders sell color matched gel coat. Gloss is accomplished by wet sanding the hardened gel coat patch down to very fine (800 grit or more)then using rubbing compound then buffing with wax. Or by using a piece of thin plastic over the wet patch to seal off any air from it while curing.
