Off subject - Gel coat

[AUSMHLY]

Hi all,
I know this is not a Healey question, but there are a lot of people here who know a lot about a lot of things. Besides Keoke that is /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/bow.gif

Wait, I just thought of a way to tie this question into a Healey related topic.

My Healey Mechanic....asked me if I knew any way to restore his dunnbuggy finish. It is solid light blue gel coat. Over time it has light white hazing. Most likely from the sun. I've tried polishing it, but it only makes it somewhat better. Doesn't polish up nice like paint. I even tried wet sanding an area first.

My best effort resulted in machine polishing, followed by Klasse all-in-one. The Klasse darkened it up a bit. Still some white clouding in the color.

Any advise?
Roger

 

[nevets]

You will probably need to repaint. As a former Lotus Elan owner, I know a bit about GRP (glass reinforced plastic). The gel coat is an in-mold coating, that is, it is applied to the surface of the mold (the surface creates the outer surface of the finished part). The glass fiber and plastic resin is then sprayed into the mold right on top of the gel coat. Once the resin is cured the part is released from the mold and the resulting part has a beautiful gel coat finish (the quality of the finish is only as good as the mold surface). Once damaged the part can be repaired, sanded, primed, and painted, but alas, it only has a gel coat once.

 

[John Loftus]

Hi Roger,

I've heard great things about using Aerospace 303 protectant on gel coat finishes (I use this stuff on flexible plastics, vinyl, tires, etc.) They sell it in Boat stores like West Marine and some Ace Hardware stores.

Here's some info on the procedure for gel coat

303 gel coat instructions

Cheers,
John

 

[AUSMHLY]

Anyone know why the blue is getting cloudy?

 

[John Loftus]

The white haze is oxidation. Gel coats/fiberglass should be waxed or UV protected with 303 to prevent oxidation but that rarely happens. For some reason, people think fiberglass is maintenance free! You should be able to machine buff the haze off unless you have some sort of deep damage. I don't think the 303 or similar treatments really remove the oxidation but help fill it in (although they do say you may need to power buff first in some cases).

 

[nevets]

you could certainly apply a coating to protect the gel coat, but what is the condition of the gel coat? it may be too far gone? the fact that you are wet sanding leads me to believe it's not in great shape. but then again it's a dune buggy which probably means it gets well sanded routinely anyways.

you might try some of the guys on the Lotus forum? Corvette forum? or a dunbuggy forum? maybe a boat forum?