Gelcoat Repair tips?
 

Am looking for recommendations on Gelcoat repair kits:

* Any personal experience with certain brands?

* Any tips on colors that match the mid-90's Mariah gelcoat. You can see from the photo of my boat I am looking for the off-white color and then the biscuit/camel color in the middle of the hull. Rather than trying a few colors perhaps someone can help me zero in.

I have been looking at Jamestown Distributors online...

Thanks!

ShabahZ250 posted his experiences with Marine-Tex in the How-to section. Did you have a look at that?

My marine-tex writeup was for a fiberglass hull repair with epoxy, I'm assuming you're talking about repairing your gelcoat on the tops or sides of the hull. Mariah used a company called Lilly Industries for their Gelcoats. We've got some literature from them in the contributors section. Maybe that'll point you in the right direction!

Ok I know this may not help you out too much, but I figured I would at least offer some information...

The kit below is purely based on a small scratch into the gelcoat and not on a repair needing the boat to be dry docked for an extended time.

http://www.evercoat.com/productDetail.aspx?pID=102

It comes out as a bright white liquid and all you have to do is clean out the area first (chemicals recommended), but I just attacked it with my dremel instead. Then I wiped out the area with a towel to try and remove the loose sanded pieces and then proceeded to fill in the scratch with the product. Started off with a small layer first and allowed that to dry overnight. Then the following day, built it up and smoothed it out to as close as I could. Then you are free to sand, paint whatever you want... lol.

I haven't really made any attempts to hide or conceal the filler job I did. My boat isn't new afterall and has lots of previous owner wear signs on it. This summer I will try and remember to bring up my dremel and see what I can do to smooth out the look of it. I was more concerned about getting the scratch filled before water sat in it and worked its "magic" into the gelcoat layer.

Here is a photo of the scratch I filled on my port side:
http://inlinethumb55.webshots.com/10...500x500Q85.jpg

If I remember correctly it was about four inches long.

Gelcoat repair
 

Evercoat makes a gelcoat repair kit product called "Match n' Patch". You get two, 2 oz tubes of gel, activator, cleaner solvent and six color tubes to match original gelcoat colors with. They also give you a mixing chart to make it easier to match some of the more common colors. I have not used it yet, but I do have a couple of "dings" and scratches to fill. Paul

Here's a post from another one of our members, Cliff Haskins that might just help!
-----------
"Hello,

New here and 1st post. I noticed no one has mentioned gelcoat for touch up repairs. Mariah used the following company once an individual color/scheme had been taken out of production.

http://www.minicraft.com/Retail/mariahboats.htm

(Even the Customer Service department would guide you to these folks.)
Hope this helps someone and is not old news."
-------------

Thanks. I just scratched the heck outta the stbd side last weekend. Not too long, but all the way through the gel to the glass. To top it off its in a very visable spot. Thanks for the link.


OK. so I just called the company, after reviewing the website and checking the info that they provide. The woman on the phone was TOTALLY rude and could not understand that Mariah used more than one color or shade of white in 1999. I have a off white or ivory or tan or whatever the heck you want to call it but she insisted that mariah only used Arctic White for my year. Then when I tried to politely correct her she said that my boat is old and stained. Hmmmmmm. NO! At least not to the extent that she is implying. Also if you have a color and are not sure of the precise shade she wont be able to assist you and if you buy a color and it is wrong (in spite of using the info they provide on the website) your stuck as all sales are final. Perhaps there products are better than their customer service.

Anyone have a source for matching the color on the hull or know where I can get a gel coat color code from?

beach rash
 

beach rash on the botem of my boat.do i regellcoat or it and sand out.the coller is gone and i can see fiberglass.do need to fix this :confused:

Did you send them your HIN to match the colors? They should be able to do it with that, and you won't even need to "talk" to them! :wink_thumbup:

No, never did that. Was told that there is no way to do so through the HIN. Said screw it and I am taking it to a local glass man to get if fixed and detailed.

Color Match --Gelcoat
 

Wow!! I just bought some"Ivory" from them--I hope I got the right color. The guy on the phone said " We don't go back to '99. I think the oldest charts they have start in '03.

I'll let you know how it comes out when I do it later this summer.

Getting back to my earlier post,

I finally snapped a photo of the area I loosely patched w/ the Evercoat repair kit. When I get home tonight I will try and update this post with the photo.

I still want to add another layer to raise it up a bit more so its flush, but for now it's holding strong.

Updating my post. The photo is very vague and it does look a lot worse then what it really is. But it is filled and I havent worked it to remove the white from the green sticker decal. I still need to raise it up to flush and then I would probably just overlay a new green decal to cover it all up again.



http://inlinethumb64.webshots.com/43...600x600Q85.jpg

Gel Coat repair
 

Overton's sells a few gel coat repair kits. One is made by Maas coming in 4 colors.
I have not used any of them, yet! But beleive them to work.

Re: Color Match --Gelcoat
 

Well, I have used the Ivory I received from Minicraft, and it was spot on. It matched perfectly. I guess the colors from model year '03 are the same as our 2000.

Re: Gelcoat Repair tips?
 

I found this quick video tutorial on you tube... NOT FOR STRUCTURAL REPAIRS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWEE6SFUdpg

Hope this helps!