Deck ding repair

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Deck ding repair

Postby kokko » Wed Oct 07, 2015 10:31 am

I had a couple of deep scratches and chip on the deck of Truelove and decided to experiment. The proper way to do this is to blend gelcoat to fill it in.
As an experiment I filled the chip with marine bondo, and painted it with latex paint. After sanding, it looks great.

I went to home depot and brought home ~50 paint chips and did my best to match the color. THey sell 4 oz samples for $3.75. First one was too yellow. THe second one was the right shade, but too light. THe third was a great match. So I spent < $12. Both of the chips I repaired was < 1cm2. I would not do this below the waterline, just on deck. If was a large area on deck, I would repair and repaint the entire deck as others have done on this forum.

So the advantages are that the marine bondo is easy to sand and shape, and the acrylic paint is easy to color match.

For the curious, the Behr paint I used for the deck of Truelove was Cappuccino Froth.
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Re: Deck ding repair

Postby GreenLake » Thu Oct 08, 2015 7:41 am

I invested in a set of tinting colors for house paint and have been doing my own color matches ever since. Trick is to go slow and approach the desired tint in small steps, and to use a hair dryer to dry test patches as paint changes shade on drying. And to use the correct base (not too much white in it, unless you are aiming for a pastel).

Never tried that on the boat.

I've been using the transparent gel coat for repairs. It's intended to be tinted for the more intense shades of dark blue, red etc. but I've used it pure. I've read that if you have some kinds of scratches, that you can just fill with that stuff. The idea being that leveling the surface will give you a fair shape that won't reveal a defect in glancing light. And the color match is, of course, perfect. What I've not been able to figure out is how deep / wide a scratch can maximally be so that filling it transparently will still make it disappear.
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Re: Deck ding repair

Postby kokko » Fri Oct 16, 2015 9:13 am

I have a friend that did the same, but his chip was too deep - it went to the cloth. He filled it in with gelcoat and has a clear bluish repair.
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Re: Deck ding repair

Postby GreenLake » Fri Oct 16, 2015 1:28 pm

Forgot to mention that, below the waterline, I've been using pre-tinted gelcoat from repair kits for some brand of motor boats. Bayliners? Whatever I could lay my hands on. The color match wasn't perfect (slightly different shades of off white) and that stuff needed to be covered with a foil to cure (oxygen inhibits the curing). If you forget the foil, the gelcoat remains sticky, but you want the foil anyway, as it helps the patch approach a nice fair shape before you even sand. (Just don't trap any bubbles).
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