'99 Sailfish Gel Coat Attempt

[johnnyboy]

Morning all and hope your all well. Havent posted in ages- miss this forum!

I attempted to fix a deep scratch that went through gel coat.

I ordered the spectrum filling gel coat and brought along a car body expert.

We taped off the edges and filled it with the gel coat. I came to notice that the new gel coat is surfaced higher than the old.

Directions call to sand with first 200 wet, 500 wet, 600 wet then to a buff.

Im nervous using all the sand paper, any ideas or thoughts?
:hmm

Thank you and heres a pic of current status.

 

[Sharkbait282]

A hard rubber sanding block (like the home depot kind) is your friend. DO NOT hold sand paper in your fingers and try to sand that. Do no use a machine of any kind.

I'd suggesting masking a quarter to half inch all the way around your repair because it looks significantly raised, and the masking tape will show you when you're not holding the block flat to the repair you're trying to level. Another trick is to scribble with #2 pencil all around your repair, and for the first bit of sanding you want to avoid scratches in the masking tape or surrounding pencil. The block, with a bucket of clean fresh water, and a sponge, should allow you to provide plenty of water to help the cutting action while you take down the high spots without digging deeper into the surrounding gel coat.

Once your scratch pattern starts to spread into the gelcoat surrounding the repair, switch up to the next grit, and make your surrounding area a bit bigger, and so on until you're doing like a 6" radius all the way around your repair with 600 or better 800. Not sure how easy it would be to buff out 600, but I know 800 buffs out relatively quickly with the 3M Imperial compound.

If you expose any voids in the gelcoat, scratch out to clean material and apply more gel coat. Repeat.

Proper hydration includes hops. Enjoy.

 

[seasick]

A hard rubber sanding block (like the home depot kind) is your friend. DO NOT hold sand paper in your fingers and try to sand that. Do no use a machine of any kind.

I'd suggesting masking a quarter to half inch all the way around your repair because it looks significantly raised, and the masking tape will show you when you're not holding the block flat to the repair you're trying to level. Another trick is to scribble with #2 pencil all around your repair, and for the first bit of sanding you want to avoid scratches in the masking tape or surrounding pencil. The block, with a bucket of clean fresh water, and a sponge, should allow you to provide plenty of water to help the cutting action while you take down the high spots without digging deeper into the surrounding gel coat.

Once your scratch pattern starts to spread into the gelcoat surrounding the repair, switch up to the next grit, and make your surrounding area a bit bigger, and so on until you're doing like a 6" radius all the way around your repair with 600 or better 800. Not sure how easy it would be to buff out 600, but I know 800 buffs out relatively quickly with the 3M Imperial compound.

If you expose any voids in the gelcoat, scratch out to clean material and apply more gel coat. Repeat.

Proper hydration includes hops. Enjoy.

Very good advice. The only comment I have might be to go to a finer final paper like 1200 but I suppose the compounding will work as described. I would use 'wet or dry' sandpaper with a bit of lubricant. Water will work fine.

 

[johnnyboy]

Thanks to you guys for responding and also those who continue to post advice.
I will try those methods and will post results.