How did that work out? I'm sorry that I couldn't help you more with that since I don't know/remember the details of the process. Did you remove any of the foam between the skins? What material(s) did you use to fill the cracks/voids?We recently repaired a spongy cockpit floor
What method did you use to repair the soft areas?
Is your intention to cover the signs of the repairs you just completed? Or do you just want to remove scratches or small dings? If the later, I'd do something like Ghost Rider suggests. Even if the former, I'd be reluctant to re-coat.
If you really want to apply gelcoat or paint I'd try to match the existing color as closely as possible, since with a contrasting color when the inevitable scratches occur, it will probably look worse than what you have now.
I've wrestled with the same decision on two older Lasers on which I've done repairs (one had a soft deck), but decided to leave them as is for fear of having something that looked a bit better initially, but much worse over time.
Why wouldn't you cover just the "polkadots" with gelcoat? That's how my cockpit was done, and you don't see those spots unless you look very closely. I think any other way would be overkill, redoing the whole damned deck massively so.Now we have a deck and cockpit with visibly repaired polkadots.
I'd like to see what you have done so far!we took pics of the entire process. When all is done I will share them.
Why wouldn't you cover just the "polkadots" with gelcoat? That's how my cockpit was done, and you don't see those spots unless you look very closely. I think any other way would be overkill, redoing the whole damned deck massively so.
I'd like to see what you have done so far!
I think this is much less of a problem than you think it is. It doesn't matter how old the surface is, but that you get the colour close enough. And "close enough" doesn't mean "identical"... the deck and cockpit of my Lightning are clearly light beige- or ivory-coloured, but I've always used plain white gelcoat filler for it, as the contrast really isn't noticeable enough to warrant the trouble of trying to find the "perfect" shade.what do you think the chances are of us matching the gelcoat of a worn, 30 year old Laser? Is this realistic?
Perhaps I was a bit harsh because I'm sure someone sufficiently skilled or careful can put a beautiful paint job on a Laser. My problem with doing this is the inevitable scratches that will penetrate to the old gelcoat, especially in places like the cockpit floor and other high wear spots. If we stood on our cars with wet, sandy boots or dragged our car bodies over sand and rocks, in a short time our cars wouldn't look very nice.
Maybe it's just my personal preference, but I think a damaged paint job looks worse than most damage to the original gelcoat. This is particularly bad when the paint and gelcoat differ in color.
So, my recommendation, for what it's worth, is to not paint.