Cockpit

Back to serious work this week although there is not a great deal to show for the effort I started off by opening up the stress cracks in the radius between the cockpit benches and the side of the cockpit this was followed up by a good sanding and a wash down with acetone to clean up the surface and provide a key for a coat of gelcoat which was followed up once it had started to gel by a coat of gelcoat with some wax in styrene added, aka flocoat. The wax in styrene rises to the surface to exclude the air which allows the gelcoat to fully cure. There were not many stress cracks but there were also some chipped and flaking in places so I have gone right the way round the cockpit in the hope that the finished job will look a bit less patchy.

Starboard side after applying gelcoat

I started today by sanding back the gelcoat on the port side with wet and dry sandpaper as can be seen I have not tried to colour match the new gelcoat with the old I will just fair it in and leave it to weather.

Port side after sanding the new gelcoat

The difference in colour between the original gelcoat and the new doesn't look so bad in the photograph now that it has been tidied up but it does show up more in the flesh. That is about it for this week next week the plan is to finish fairing the new gelcoat so that I can then get on with painting the non slip areas.