A thought about gelcoat

[Marcq]

Did I spelled that right ?
Anyways, did a lot of searching about applying gelcoat(reading many threads on the subject), and came to the conclusion that  no mater  how well you're equipped, you'll have to sand, sand, and sand to have a nice finish, AND that is, IF you applied enough gelcoat to  sand. So I would think that a good way of applying it, would be a roller, you have to sand anyway! and the thickness would be easier to obtain, I would think.

Will be doing my floor/casting deck shortly after my console is done, will be doing Rick's method of nonskid , I have a flat area vertically on my casting deck that will be a testing bed

Stay tuned

Marc..

[wingtime]

Marc,

Your right gel coat is not like paint you don't just spray it on and it dries all nice and shinny.  Keep in mind when they lay up a boat hull they start by spraying the gelcoat on the inside of the mold first and then start applying the glass.  The mold is already polished and shinny, so when the boat pops out of the mold it's already shinny!

[slippery73]

Its not as bad as everyone makes it out, use duratec with it if you want a paint like consistency spray(foolproof) or go old school and used waxed gelcoat and thin with styrene. Key is spraying with a decent gun with a large tip, 2.2mm+. The "gelcoat" guns that most use are piles of crap and orange peel like crazy, spray paint with that thing and its going to look like butt too. My hull took very little sanding in the grand scheme of things, pad sanded dry with 220, wetsanded 400, 600, 800, then compound & buff. Seems like a lot of steps but it really goes guick, hardest part is the first sanding with the 220 pad sander, your taking any orange peel out. After that all your doing is removing the sanding scratches from the previous grit. If you doing interior parts I wouldn't even bother sanding it out, the duratec high gloss additive gives pretty good results without all that crap. Better than a lot of amateurs paint jobs i've seen.

[Marcq]

Its not as bad as everyone makes it out, use duratec with it if you want a paint like consistency spray(foolproof) or go old school and used waxed gelcoat and thin with styrene. Key is spraying with a decent gun with a large tip, 2.2mm+. The "gelcoat" guns that most use are piles of crap and orange peel like crazy, spray paint with that thing and its going to look like butt too. My hull took very little sanding in the grand scheme of things, pad sanded dry with 220, wetsanded 400, 600, 800, then compound & buff. Seems like a lot of steps but it really goes guick, hardest part is the first sanding with the 220 pad sander, your taking any orange peel out. After that all your doing is removing the sanding scratches from the previous grit. If you doing interior parts I wouldn't even bother sanding it out, the duratec high gloss additive gives pretty good results without all that crap. Better than a lot of amateurs paint jobs i've seen.

Yeah but slipp, you do professional work, we can tell from your work that you're not a noob at it. But most of us are . Sure would like to see you do it live, never thought of giving seminar's ?

Marc..

[slippery73]

Its not as bad as everyone makes it out, use duratec with it if you want a paint like consistency spray(foolproof) or go old school and used waxed gelcoat and thin with styrene. Key is spraying with a decent gun with a large tip, 2.2mm+. The "gelcoat" guns that most use are piles of crap and orange peel like crazy, spray paint with that thing and its going to look like butt too. My hull took very little sanding in the grand scheme of things, pad sanded dry with 220, wetsanded 400, 600, 800, then compound & buff. Seems like a lot of steps but it really goes guick, hardest part is the first sanding with the 220 pad sander, your taking any orange peel out. After that all your doing is removing the sanding scratches from the previous grit. If you doing interior parts I wouldn't even bother sanding it out, the duratec high gloss additive gives pretty good results without all that crap. Better than a lot of amateurs paint jobs i've seen.

Yeah but slipp, you do professional work, we can tell from your work that you're not a noob at it. But most of us are . Sure would like to see you do it live, never thought of giving seminar's ?

Marc..

It really isn't difficult, if you can read directions and follow them properly you shouldn't have any problems. I don't know what these people do to get the horror stories I hear about it but I have little experience spraying gelcoats and I haven't had any problems. Granted I am very familiar with spraying and applying catalyzed lacquers, varnishes etc. for woodworking. But its pretty straight forward, nice thing about the gelcoat is you spray it on thick, even if your not the most refined sprayer in the world and you have some runs or orange peel it sands out easy enough with a machine sander. If you worried about that you can spray it on extra thick to allow for additional sanding removal. Most people don't give it a chance though because they have heard so many problems with it. Its really not bad to apply if done properly, that just means a little more reading before attempting.