Fibreglass repairs

On Monday I set too and got three coats of gelcoat on the repair area and then finished up with a final coat of gelcoat with 2% wax in styrene added, also known as flow coat, as gelcoat will not fully cure in the presence of air the wax floats to the surface and excludes the air. To finish off the day I did a bit more to the navigation light wiring that is as far as I can go until I obtain the lights and some more cable.

After applying gelcoat

As applied the gelcoat is a bit rough but I suppose gelcoating a repair is a bit of a back to front job it usually gets sprayed onto a nice smooth mould then the GRP is laid up directly on to it. I spent most of Tuesday sanding the gelcoat back there were a couple of low areas which required a further application which I put on before finishing for the day.

Today I started with another sanding session which leaves the repair looking like this. 

After final sanding

There is a difference in the colour between the original gelcoat, the new gelcoat and the paint which has been applied to the topsides I intend to paint over the repair and try and match it to the existing paint finish if at all possible.

I finished off today by sanding the blue area along the topsides ready for painting next week. This is a short post but filling and fairing the repair has been quite time consuming