5 Gallon Pressure Pot ??

Can anyone suggest a good set up for spraying gelcoat into a skiff mold that doesn't cost several thousand dollars?

Ive seen the 5 gallon pots but have no experience with them.

Relatively new to boat construction and want to avoid dropping serious cash right off the bat on gelcoat application.

Thanks !!

 

This is cheap and as reliable as the operator & mixer... I use and recommend there's plenty better but at greater cost, is a little wasteful but fine on low volume. Jeff.

 

How will you handle catalyst?

 

A five gallon pressure pot would be in the dumpster about 10 minutes into the project.

 

There’s ways around that, but they’re sketchy. One of the ways I was told was to ice bath the pot.

If I were to use a dirt cheap system, I would use a cheap diaphragm pump to push material from a pail or drum to a Binks 2100 GW. They’re almost impossible to accurately meter properly, but the total cost would be less than $1500. The “Happybuy QBK15” on Amazon has a polypropylene diaphragm and is styrene compatible.

Short of that, if I had to hot pot large quantities, maybe a hopper style spraygun for popcorn ceilings? They are designed for viscous material and can be purchased cheaply from harbor freight.

 

Icing the gel coat makes it far more difficult to spray, plus slows down the spray process significantly.

The only 5 gallon at a time method that works well is to use a commercial house paint airless system. Then use an inhibitor to lengthen the gel time. There is also a product called Gel X (Gel Time Extender), it will about double the GT.

I used to do this frequently on field jobs where large amounts of gel coat were needed.

 

Take the advice of ondarvr.

Ask him for a cheap idea...

 

5 gallon no, 5 litres is plenty, you can run at least 2 mixes through it and that should suffice.