Scratches on swim platform

[paulga]

I can't argue with your logic. Seems sound to me.

Is suggest hopping on Hull Truth or anywhere else you see a thread about it, even a dead one, and asking about single coat coverage.

The two things I wonder about are...

1) whether, if the gel is heavily diluted, it'll still be able to provide good enough 1-coar coverage, and

2) whether it kicks as quickly as a normal gel mix, allowing multiple coats quickly after each other, or if each coat requires more time.

But, again, I'm just wondering. I've never used it.

I look forward to your full report, whatever you use! Can't wait for the pics!

I have tried twice to apply gelcoat. It has to be a weekend with warm good weather while I also have time, so the timing is important.

The first time I used the paste form gelcoat in the Evercoat repair kit. I thought the paste could be thinned like kids watercolor paint which I could apply using a brush to have a smooth layer, but as it turned out, the gelcoat paste remained to be a paste even after being thinned a lot. When brushed on, it looked rough. I had to sand it down later. One thing to note was the white tint tube in that kit was less than 1/5 of its capacity. The brushed paste was not runny.

The second time, I ordered Totalboat laminate white gelcoat, added some black tint from the Evercoat repair kit, 10% styrene, and applied using a preval sprayer. It sprayed easily, but the tint did not fully mix with the gelcoat even though I mixed a long time. The tint clumps were sprayed out and ruined the efforts. So I wiped it clean with a lot of acetone.

The sprayed gelcoat was runny and flowing. Is this expected?

I will try again next time. Does the Evercoat tint not mix well with Totalboat gelcoat? Or did I miss anything?

 

[STB]

Hi PaulGA,

Can you post links to the kit you got the tints from and the gel coat you used? I'll take a look and see if I can sort why they didn't play well together. But, that probably won't fix them not playing well together!

The sprayed gel cost gets runny like that when it is sprayed to thickly for the viscosity. It might also be spraying from too close.

The dimensions you can optimize across are the viscosity of the gelcoat, the distance from the sprayed to the work, and the speed of the stroke.

I always practice on cardboard first and tune my mix until it goes nicely for me.

 

[STB]

BTW, you are doing the right thing to try and try again. It may be tuition, but the education will be lasting and empowering.