Posts: 32951
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Whoa, great advice on FRP repair, but the keel doesn't have any glass damage on it. I would acquire the gel coats from Ranger ( hazardous materials, so it will cost a bundle to ship. Get the clear, polyflake, and keel color shipped at one time). The keel first: sand the area around the gel damage, and clean the area with Acetone. Make sure the area is dry. Take a piece of packing tape wider than the damage and longer than the damage, and stick one end to the outer edge of the undamaged area. Dab enough mixed ( add catalyst per Ranger's instructions) gel coat to the area to fill it and quickly smooth the packing tape over the damaged area, creating a 'bubble' of gel over the bad spot as close to original form as possible. Let it kick, pull off the tape, and wet sand it with a 600 grit until it's even. Buff the area with a rotary buffer and polishing compound, and it's new.
The scratch should be wet sanded IF YOU CAN'T GET IT BUFFED OUT BY HAND JUST in the scratched area very lightly taking great care not to get into the ployflake. Mix enough clear gel coat to spray the area, and use a CO2 spray assembly or the like. You also can use a very small fine artist's brush and make sure there is a slightly raised area over the scratch. Wet sand the clear down to a match, buff with polishing compound, and it's fixed.
The chip will require mixing red flake with clear gel that is catalyzed, and setting a base repair with the red mix. Put enough in to establish a background color for the final thin layer of clear taking care to stay within the chip and let that kick. The do the same type of tape repair I described for the keel with clear, wet sand and buff. That one won't be perfect, it takes quite an artist to repair polyflake perfectly.
My 2 cents..
I've done a fair amount of this sort of repair in the field, but am not what one would call expert at it. Still, the results I got were more than OK.  |
