Repairing gel coat

[Chris71]

Hi,

How easy is it to repair cracks/'stars' in gel coated fibre glass bodies? Presumably there's nothing to stop you spraying the car with conventional paint after making the repairs? Better still, is there any way to restore the original gel coat colour?

Looking at a few secondhand kit cars which all seem to have minor cosmetic issues, just wondered how easy it was to work on gel coat and what can and cannot be done.

Perhaps I should ask this the other way - are there are problems likely to occur with fibregalss bodies which are terminal?

Chris.

[MATHEW]

DROP ME AN E-MAIL AND I WILL SEND YOU A PDF DOCUMENT ON HOW TO REPAIR GEL COAT.
REGARDS
MATTY

[vojx]

matching the original gel-coat might be tricky, so when its all polished back to new, you may still see the repairs. this happened on our white Quantum 2+2. bit of road grime soon covered it up, but if you are a picky sort then a respray would be better

[Chris71]

MATHEW said:

DROP ME AN E-MAIL AND I WILL SEND YOU A PDF DOCUMENT ON HOW TO REPAIR GEL COAT.
REGARDS
MATTY

Hi Matt,

Tried to and I got

"Oops...

Sorry - the recipient doesn't permit emails."

If you send me a blank PM I'll reply from my email address! Bit long winded I know......

Thanks for the help

[gallowg]

Repair it as per the books, heat it, heat it, heat it some more to remove possibility of shrinkage and leave it as long as poss before painting

[Sam_68]

Repairing cosmetic damage to fibreglass isn't complicated, but it is quite time consuming.

Also, you wont manage to match the colour with gelcoat, so you are looking at a spray job when you've finished the repairs/preparation. I've done acceptable re-sprays myself at home using a fairly chap spray gun/compressor and cellulose, but to get a decent quality result still takes an awful lot of time and effort in preparation.

[MATHEW]

chris
E-mail has been sent to you with my address.
regards
mathew

[v8 jago]

Ive been told that if you have cracks in a fiberglass car then you need to drill small holes at each end of the cracks to stop it splitting even more. I know it sounds like hard work but im told this is the only way you will stop it going even futher.