Aerosol gelcoat.....

[gcarter]

I just bought some aerosol gel coat from Mini-Craft.:)
I'm in the process of re-finishing an extra hatch. I'll be posting some pics as I go.

[gcarter]

A couple of years ago I refinished my original hatch;
http://www.donzi.net/forums/showthread.php?t=38677
Before I bought the boat, the hatch had suffered from a blowover onto the aft lifting ring.
While the over all quality of the repair was good, the finish of the paint on the stripe had some cosmetic issues because of the hard-to-repair underlying gelcoat where the hole was.

[gcarter]

I had bought some parts from another wrecked Minx, including a windshield and a hatch. The wrecked Minx was honey and red. Shortly after I got the extra hatch I sanded it thoroughly and removed the blue accent stripes. Then I set it aside until recently....

[gcarter]

I started off the other day and sanded the backside and filled the holes where the small wooden blocks were for the hatch prop. I generally filled any low areas and I found it remarkable how the grey bilgecoat covered a lot of mistakes.
Then I sanded it again to make it worthy of being on my boat...particularly with white bilgecoat.

[gcarter]

Finally I had an opportunity to gel the top of the hatch. What I had forgot was that we're in our second love bug season of the year.
No sooner than I was spraying on a nice coat than the bugs swarmed!:eek!: :eek!:
The styrene or something in the gel is a real bug magnet.

[gcarter]

There wasn't anything to do but wait till it hardened and sand them off. I thought that when I washed off the wax w/acetone, the bugs would come off and only the legs would be in the gel.
Not so!
I had to remove a good bit of the gel I had sprayed. but fortunately, not all of it.

[gcarter]

Finally, yesterday I was able to spray a nice coat onto the hatch while inside the shop.
As soon as I can sand it and tape it for the Donzi Red accent stripes.
I'll keep you up dated.

[Schnook]

Looking Good!!!

[yeller]

I saw that aerosol gel on their website and always wondered if it was any good. Let us know how the results are compared to other repairs you've done with the 'standard' gel.

BTW: It's only September. Out of respect to your fellow boaters that have to endure boatless winters, you're supposed to save this kind of stuff till then.....it's all we have. :( :wink:

[gcarter]

BTW: It's only September. Out of respect to your fellow boaters that have to endure boatless winters, you're supposed to save this kind of stuff till then.....it's all we have. :( :wink:
Last winter the Minx spent too much time on a set of dollies while I redid the bottom.
This winter I intend to use the boat......as much as possible.:yes:

[yeller]

This winter I intend to use the boat......as much as possible.:yes:
Now that's just not fair.............:( :( :biggrin.:

[gcarter]

Friday afternoon I got another coat of gel on the hatch but also another swarm of bugs.....even in the shop.:eek!::bonk: They seem to love the gel.
Saturday morning I repaired the bug damage with patch paste and color sanded the hatch to 1200.
That's all I'll do till I buff the new gel.
Next I set the hatch on the boat and checked the fit and color match.

[gcarter]

Next I laid out the accent stripes with 1/4" wide masking tape using the existing stripes on the deck as guides.

[gcarter]

After that I removed the hatch and continued to mask the stripes.

[gcarter]

Now to the point of this whole thread.
The aerosol gel is about 8-9 oz. of color matched gel and pumped into a standard spray can. You buy the can and a reuseable pump to mix the MEK catalyst (1/4 oz.) inside the can.

[gcarter]

Next after pumping in the catalyst, you shake-shake-shake-shake, and shake some more.
Before spraying the gel, be sure and spray the can somewhere else to get the unmixed MEK out of the internal tube.
Spray the gel just like you would any spray can.

[gcarter]

I let the sprayed gel sit for about 15 minutes before removing the masking tape. I think it wouldn't be wise to let the gel get hard w/o doing so. If you were sprying vertical I suppose you might wait just a bit longer.
This particular product is quite a bit thinner than the gel I spray in my gun.

[gcarter]

Finally, the finished product.
I'm pretty pleased with my first experience with this product.
I only used about 1/4 of the contents. Of course as soon as you catalyse the can, it will get hard, so any unused gel is wasted.

[gcarter]

Tomorrow, Monday, I'll buy some fresh paint, reducer, and hardener and repaint the entire center stripe on the rear of the boat.


'SOTA'S COMING!!!:) :yippie:

[Cuda]

Looking good George. Let me know when you're ready for me to bring my Minx hatch over.:wink:

As far as the love bugs, they are attracted to white. Go out and look at a blacktop road. You'll see all the love bugs on the white lines.

[Cuda]

I'm not as patient as you are. As I mentioned in my new interior thread, I could have sworn my pinstripe on the outside of my blue stripe was red. It's actually a light blue. Here's my solution to that problem. I ordered it yesterday. I've bought striping from them before on the F20 project.

I picked #31 for my red.

http://www.stripeman.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=Pin+Stripe