fibreglass boat

"ernie vinton" wrote in message

>I have a fibreglass sailing boat and it is badly scratched and marked ,how
> do i repair the surface and what materials do i need PLEASE
>
As no one else has replied I will add my engineers sixpenoth.

First get some Tcut & rubbing compound from a car place (Halfords will do)
and use the compound to try to remove the surface marks. If these come off
polish with Tcut and the a decent wax marine polish.

There are more specialist makes of abrasive pastes (from chandlers) but
expect to pay!

If the gellcoat is damaged you need to find a supplier of grp resins (Phone
Strand Glass for a local stockist).

Buy gellcoat resin, pigment if required and hardener.

If the gashes are really deep, but the hull integrity is still satisfactory
you could part fill them with car body filler, but note that is porous and
must be given a waterproof top coat. Epoxy filler may be better, but cost
more.

Prepare the scratches by a good abrading with course abrasive paper and
blow/brush all the dist out.

If using filler partially fill and let the filler harden - reabrade the
filler surface.

Mix up a small quantity of gellcoat resin brush into scratch, letting each
coat stiffen. Over time build the surface up until proud of the hull.

Using a rubbing block and decreasing grades of abrasive paper sand back to
hull level, finishing with very fine wet & dry, then rubbing compound, Tcut
(unless using a very fine polishing compound) and finally wax polish.

I hope this helps



--
Tony Brooks
www.TB-Training.co.uk