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My quest continues to get my old Whaler up to my standards.... This site continues to offer the best help around.
I've looked around at many gel coat repair instructions and am unclear as to which procedures/products are the best for these kind of repairs. Any help pointing me in the right place for instructions on fixing these blemishes would be very helpful. These are my next identified projects.
P.S. Should this boat stay dry as I am worried about water-logging my whaler, or are these knicks purely cosmetic? Thanks.
Those "green" scars are not going to let water into the hull. So there is no reason to keep the hull dry for them. Where are the rust spots from? Could you take a picture zoomed out of the area?
As for the green scars, Rough up the area just around (with in a 1/2") of the nick with 220 wet sand paper. Use Specturm's 2 part gel coat patch to fill the area of green. Be sure to smooth out the patch as best as you can before it hardens.
Once cured (about 1/2 hour) wet sand the patch and surounding are with 400 grit. Work the area to get the patch smooth and the same level as the surrounding gel coat. If there is still voids refill and repeat. Remember not to over work the area and remove to much gel coat. Do not sand with the tips of your fingers, use the flat area of you fingers and the palm of your hand. Once you have worked the area smooth with the 400 move up to 600, then 800, and finish with 1200 grit wet sand.
Next use 3m rubbing compound or 3m finesse it to polish the surface back to a shine and finish with a good wax.
Thanks for the instructions! They sound fairly straight forward.
As for the rust spots, I have no idea. There are several around the gunwale and inner surface of the gunnel. They do look like holes that have been filled with Marine-tex or similar and then painted, and then rusted over?!?
Dylan, is it possible that there is still hardware in the areas that are rusting? Maybe the previous owner broke off some screws and the base of them are still in there. Just a thought. Jeff's description of the nick repair is spot on. Great write up Jeff!
I guess it may be possible there are some screws underneath a repaired surface and the rust is coming through the gel coat. Defintiely strange, the boat did come with a canvas bimini top and a canvas cuddy, maybe that has something to do with it. I've since removed them as I use the boat for flyfishing the sound.
