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VancouverMark
02-17-2011, 08:43 PM
I have some spider cracking around the lifting eyes and the swim platform that I would like to repair. A local guy qouted me between $800-1200 and I thought that was a little nuts.

How hard is it to do myself? Any tips?

gcarter
02-17-2011, 09:21 PM
There have been years when it was pretty common for the deck and cockpit floor areas to be a little light.
Before repairing the cracks, it's a good idea to layup some double bias stitchmat under the affected areas, otherwise it'll happen again.
The cracks have to be completely removed all the way down to the glass substrate. If there's just a few, I've used a dremel w/a carbide tipped cutter to grind out the cracks. If there's too many, then the whole area needs to be sanded down to the glass.
If you grind out the cracks, you can buy what Minicraft calls "patch paste" that's tinted to match your original gel. You have to slightly overfill the cracks because the gel will shrink quite a bit. After a few days you can carefully sand it down, then color sand, and finally buff and polish.
If you sand down the entire area, then you buy color matched gel from Minicraft, or other supplier and spray about 20 mills on the sanded/ground areas. Then sand, sand, sand, and sand some more.
Actually, the quote you received sounds pretty good.
Good luck.

joseph m. hahnl
02-18-2011, 07:45 AM
Then sand, sand, sand, and sand some more.
Actually, the quote you received sounds pretty good.
Good luck.

:rofl: George, do you think you'll ever look back and say? Yeah, those were

the days.

gcarter
02-18-2011, 09:08 AM
:rofl: George, do you think you'll ever look back and say? Yeah, those were

the days.

Uhhhhh.....
I don't think so.