Repair dings & dents.....

Hello...

I have 95 Grady white with an off white color.

There are some small dings, dents and light scratches from the occasional wear and tear. Hull also has some small holes from old removed accessories that I would like to patch.

I am bit confused as to what it the best product and procedure to patch these small holes and scratches while matching the existing hull color.

I read some say use gel coat others say use paint.

Can someone please point me in the right direction?

 

Every fiberglass boat eventually reaches a point where the gelcoat becomes porous, and your boat might already have a pin-holes too deep to buff out.
Both paint (2-part) and gelcoat last at least ten years, gelcoat 5 years longer I would say. Both methods are very very expensive to have done, and not (usually) the kind of thing a non-professional should attempt.
Look closely at the surface and see what the condition is. Gelcoat can be spot-filled by someone who is very good with color, which is a profession in itself, and probably your situation will best be solved by buffing out the lighter scratches and spot-filling the worst gouges. It's worth it to pay to have the color-mixing done if you're like me with colors. You can do all the grunt work in any case---- all you need is a pro to match the color and try out a single gouge (watch him do it!), then sanding through successive grits up to maybe 1500, and then buffing the patched spots out along with the surrounding areas.

A.

 

Try buffing a small area first, it's very easy and normally will make gel coat look much better. If that doesn't do a good enough job then try lightly sanding the area with 600 grit (you may need to go to 1000, but 600 works many times) sand paper then buffing again. As for the scratches and holes, you can get gel coat already color matched to your boat online from Spectrum Color (253 735 1830), they will include the instructions on how to use it. It's not hard to do this type of work and you will save a bunch of money, plus you may enjoy doing it yourself.

 

Repair dings & Dents....

Thank you .. Alan and ondarvr its all starting to make sense after reading your advice.

The gel coat on the boat is good after buffing. I just need to fill some spots where light scratches that you can bump in to with finger nail and some drill wholes from removed antennas cup holders etcetera.

I have a few holes drilled in areas where sand was used for texture. If I fill holes with color matched gel coat can I apply some sand to match existing texture?

 

Just a couple of things. Filling of holes should be done with some backing and an epoxy filler up to just below the surface. I have sometimes not even filled the holes (unless there is crazing around them, but instead put stainless screws with washers in them, which only looks purposeless to you, but to the naive eye wandering over the boat, it looks just fine and is assumed to have a purpose.
Your texturing sand is available from Petit or other paint and varnish companies in a 4 oz can, usually labled non-skid additive or some such.
What locks the existing texure down is probably not gelcoat but paint.
You lay down some paint, sprinkle to match, let dry, and paint again with a couple of coats. Might be a good idea to get a quart of two-part brushable polyurethane matched to your fiberglass and you might want to mask off all your nonskid areas that have holes and put a coat on the whole area after non-skid is added. Otherwise, it is not going to blend as well. The nice thing is you can use a mini-roller to apply the paint.
The paint is good to have around for other chores too, like adding nonskid in other places, doing the cockpit sole, etc..

Alan

 

If the holes are above the water line and are just typical small screw holes, then you can use gel coat. you need to sort of counter sink the hole for best results, this will clean up the edge and provide more bonding surface so the repair will last. The nonskid may be paint or gel coat and may be from the factory or added later, it's hard to tell without looking at it. You can spot fill them and add a little sand to the surface, or redo all of it, it just depends on what you want to do.

 

Repair dings & dents...

I am getting some good Ideas here.... thanks for your support guys.

I have another issue with the floor I was wondering if I could get some feed back on these one.

I just got the boat not long ago and previous owner did a very distasteful thing. He painted over the nice diamond designed floor with a white color paint that those not match the original color and they added sand to where the diamond design is no longer visible.

I was wondering if there is any possible way to remove that white paint / sand and bring back the original flooring?

or should I just repaint over it with proper color ?

I was also told I should sand down the floor to a smooth surface add primer and repaint with right color and add sand.

Thanks

 

There is no way to remove that paint, or at least it would be a terribly time-consuming, messy job, if at all possible.
The last suggestion, to level and paint, makes sense. Life is short!

A.

 

You may be able to use a paint stripper that's gel coat friendly to remove the paint and sand, depending on the type of paint it may not work though. Sanding down a nonskid that has sand in it is almost impossible, you can smooth it out some with grinder, but it goes very slow.