Hi all - New to the forum, new to the sunfish, and new to sailing (Having a blast by the way). Just bought a camp on a sailing lake near the Adirondack region of NY, came with an older (not sure how) sunfish in great shape! It is very solid and sits high on the water. Already did some fiberglass repair on the halyard cleat (my fault) which came out great. My question is this - the boat has been stored outside (winters included) for years and in the shade. It needs a damn good cleaning for starters, but I'd like to go a step further and take it home when I pull it out this fall, fill in the scratches and cracks, and then paint it over the winter. It definitely needs at least a bit of a paint job, given the repair I've already made. I can do the elbow work, but dont know what materials you would all recommend. What is Gel Coat, and how is it different than paint?
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New Member - Gel Coat questions
- Thread starter JSDouglas
- Start date
newcanaanlaser
New Member
Gel Coat is a pigment that is applied at the time the hull is layed up. Follow this link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelcoat. Also, type in Gel coat on Google and you will get many hits.
Oof - that's alot of techno babble there at Wiki. It’s probably enough to say Gelcoat is fiberglass resin. It contains the pigment for the cosmetic looks and some UV protectants. It usually does not have any glass fibers, but is thickened with other additives more than the base polyester resin used for building the rest of the fiberglass shell. Gelcoat is laid on to a thickness of about .02”. Paint layers go on at about .002” each. It’s many times tougher than paint and intended to sacrifice a couple of thousandths of an inch a couple of times during its life to being buffed down to restore its luster.