Premium Gelcoats

[We're Here]

Marketing claims aside, is there such a thing as a "premium" (ester) gelcoat? It has been my experience that some gelcoats stand up to the environment much better than others. That some gelcoats can be restored with a mild compounding while others need to be aggressively (wet) sanded to just get a semblance of what they were when new. Certain aged gelcoats appear soft to me while the ones requiring less work (and look much nicer when done) seem to be harder. Is there any rhyme or reason to this and are there better brands of gelcoat?

Gel coat is a wonderful product when used correctly. When used incorrectly or maintained improperly it's junk. I just sold a 40 year old boat with the original gel coat. It looked pretty good compared to 10 year old paint! Unfortunately, there are a lot of idiots out there, both on the manufacturing side and on the maintenance side.
Follow the gel coat manufacturers procedures to the letter and be mindful of environmental conditions and you'll have a good result. For my money, the Neopental glycol products can't be beat.
BTW..."agressive" wet sanding aint the answer. Light wet sanding removes the oxidation, not the gel coat.

[War Whoop]

Here I usually use their products and have for many years.

http://www.ccponline.com/products/pr...al_marine.html

[ondarvr]

There are so many different formulas it would make your head spin and if you want to get very specific on gel coat, what's used topside may not be the best product for the hull, so you could have several different gel coats on one boat.

It also depends on where you live in the world, what you find on each continent will be different, sometimes due to local regulations, other times due to local production methods and in other regions it can be totally based on cost.

Then you have the variables of how well the product was applied in the beginning, a premium gel coat applied poorly can degrade sooner than a lesser grade gel coat applied properly.

[War Whoop]

We used CCP's 943 series and never had a problem in So Florida.

[ondarvr]

943 has a long history of good performance, its not used as much now because it doesn't meet the current emissions regulations for most production shops.

[Herman]

In my catalogue I have about 30 types of gelcoat, hand picked from a list of more than 150. I am not mentioning colours.

There is a gelcoat for everybody.

Think of the different types of base resin (ortho, iso, or a mixture of those, ortho-npg, iso, iso-npg, vinylester)
Then there is the spray vs brush/roll viscosity and rheology
And of course the types of fillers and pigments.

Some things on the list:
easily sandable gelcoat, great if the product needs rework (car bumpers)
swimming pool gelcoats, in all kind of wacky colours
boat coats, highly UV stabilised, scratch proof
fire retardant gelcoat, plain or intumescent
anti-static gelcoat
tooling gelcoats, in various versions, even very scratch proof, sllightly flexible ones, for mould edges.

There is so much, it can give you a headache.

Problem is you never have the chance to try them all out. If you have the chance, you can request samples from different suppliers, and have one of the suppliers UV test them for you. This gives a good comparison on what the results are after a couple of years in the sun.

[GG]

Originally Posted by War Whoop

Here I usually use their products and have for many years.

http://www.ccponline.com/products/pr...al_marine.html

Steve , that is so funny that you posted this because sitting in front of me is a application manual from Cook's or Polycor on there gel coats and resins which i got over 40 years ago while working at Thompson Boat Co when we started using there products .

[dinoa]

Sailplanes are often redone using a product called Prestec because of its superior UV resistance to replace the original Lesonal Schwabelac or Vorgelat gel coats. I believe Prestec is an Australian product formulated for boats. Today most aircraft are manufactured and refinished with polyurethane or urethane acrylic paints.

Does anyone have experience with Prestec?

Dino

[War Whoop]

Originally Posted by GG

Steve , that is so funny that you posted this because sitting in front of me is a application manual from Cook's or Polycor on there gel coats and resins which i got over 40 years ago while working at Thompson Boat Co when we started using there products .

Artie Yes ,Cook had a excellent handbook that was the standard of the industry. LOL that brings back memories I have one around somewhere and need to dig it out.

[ondarvr]

The books were given away for many years, but it became too expensive to give them out to everyone. You can get free copies on CD, or it can be downloaded from the website.

Books cost money now.

http://www.ccponline.com/products/pr..._cookbook.html

[War Whoop]

Artie a 38 Deck mold being sprayed up (I am in the spray suit) Cook Tooling 94+ Degrees and @2% 6 minutes max to empty hotpot.

[GG]

Originally Posted by ondarvr

The books were given away for many years, but it became too expensive to give them out to everyone. You can get free copies on CD, or it can be downloaded from the website.

Books cost money now.

http://www.ccponline.com/products/pr..._cookbook.html

As i was looking thru the table of contents on the backside of the front cover it states that the price of the book was $75.00 and that was over forty years ago which was pretty pricey for back then .

[GG]

Steve 6 minutes max ....... and when you are under condtions like that you sure learn how to hustle & real fast . ha ha ha ha

[ondarvr]

Originally Posted by GG

As i was looking thru the table of contents on the backside of the front cover it states that the price of the book was $75.00 and that was over forty years ago which was pretty pricey for back then .

Correct, but we never charged for them, it was just something we gave to customers. Now I think it says $150.00 and the salesman is charged that amount for every book handed out in his territory and it can add up rapidly. Its not so much the cost of the information, which at 150.00 is pretty reasonable, that part is free, its the cost of preparing for, and then printing the book that costs a small fortune.