BRe gel coat repairs

[tcave]

My BRe has some gel coat chips on the internal cockpit. Does anyone have any advice about how I might go about repairing this. Including how i get the correct colour of gel coat.  Thanks in advance

[garethrow]

Tcave

I am no expert on fiberglass, prefering wood. But - needs must and now taht I have a grp BR20 I have attempted to repair scatches in the gel coat. To get the right colour I suggest you contact Swallow and ask as this is critical. Thereafter I guess it depends on the type of damage - chips / scratches or stress cracks. If you buy a decent repair kit it will come with everything you need and clear instructions. Esentiallly it is a matter of roughing out the damaged area and then filling in with reson first is its deep, follwed by gel coat as a second operation. My kit came with bits of clear polythene? to cover repairs on vertical surfaces to deter running / sagging. After it has cured then rubbing down with progressivelyt finer grades of wet and dry to final polishing.

Good luck!

Gareth Rowlands
GRP BR20 Halen Y Mor

[TheOldDuffer]

Tcave

I am no expert on fiberglass, prefering wood. But - needs must and now taht I have a grp BR20 I have attempted to repair scatches in the gel coat. To get the right colour I suggest you contact Swallow and ask as this is critical. Thereafter I guess it depends on the type of damage - chips / scratches or stress cracks. If you buy a decent repair kit it will come with everything you need and clear instructions. Esentiallly it is a matter of roughing out the damaged area and then filling in with reson first is its deep, follwed by gel coat as a second operation. My kit came with bits of clear polythene? to cover repairs on vertical surfaces to deter running / sagging. After it has cured then rubbing down with progressivelyt finer grades of wet and dry to final polishing.

Good luck!

Gareth Rowlands
GRP BR20 Halen Y Mor

Standard repair gel coat filler is whiter than the BRe. You could ask Swallow for a sample but the hulls are molded in Poland?

[Nicky R]

The difficulty is that the gel coat will have changed colour with exposure to uv. Mark just did a small gel coat repair to Sulis, and despite being kept undercover for the last two years, the colour had changed so the patch is noticeable. When we had Grace (our BRE) we took her to a specialist to make good a couple of places. They were able to match the colour perfectly (to my eyes).

So in summary, if you want not to see the repair, take it to someone who specialises. If you’re not so worried, I’m sure the filler kit is fine!