need to patch gelcoat - got the evercoat kit

I have a fairly new Mako 2101 I need to do a little patch on. I thought I was done finding the "bone head" boat center mistakes but it looks like one struck a couple of weekends ago. Apparently a lock nut was not used on one of the boat rollers on the bottom front of the trailer. The roller fell off one side and the boat struck the metal bracket that sticks up and knocked off a little piece of gelcoat right at a strake. I have experience with color matching resins/gelcoats but I'm wondering if this kit is like most other resins in that it gets lighter when cured? Anything to watch out for specifically with this kit? How close is the color match chart?

Thanks

Re: need to patch gelcoat - got the evercoat kit

Mako 2101 is kinda not made yet I mean .. Thats NEW !! LOL..

Did you mean 2001 .. or 2011 ?

If its a 2011 then your golden for warranty..

If its 2001 then your boned ..

From the fuzzy pic it looks like an Air Void..that just happend to pop..

Your kit will match the gel ( hopefully ) at first..but will change colors over time.

Your going to just patch paste this..and after a while it will start to "pop" without spraying over it.

I would try to get the OEM gel and mix patch paste..then sand and spray/sand/buff it..

As soon as you start color matching base gels you will end up with a swing when the gel ages over time..

There are tricks like adding clear gel to your mix to help wash out the pigments that you add ..but its no guarantee that the patch will not swing hard on ya..

YD.

Re: need to patch gelcoat - got the evercoat kit

The Boat is a Mako 2101. 2101 is the model and it was built in 2008. I bought it in the summer of 2009 brand new and I've logged about 35 hours on it. It's almost 2 years old to me in a month from now. Dunno, seems pretty new to me.

I'm well aware of the warranties I received from the dealership, along with the extended warranty from Mercury. The "boat" warranty expired 1 year after I purchased the boat. Trust me when I say I'd rather fix it myself anyhow. The dealership has to get a gelcoat guy because they don't do repairs in house, and according to the manager, they never look right. I know this from previous work that was done on the boat. They patched a place they ground a tool into the floor and it doesn't match. It was minor but my eye caught it.

This is not an air void. It is from a roller that fell off. I know it's hard to see but if you look up the keel guard you'll see a scar on it where the guard actually kept the bracket from digging in. If the keel guard wasn't there it'd be a bigger patch. I'll post a pic of the missing roller. it was actually still on, but missing one out half and hanging down, which is why the boat scraped on it.

Thanks for your thoughts. I guess I was wanting more of a comment on the quality of the outcome of this patch kit. Providing I do everything right, it will still swing?

Re: need to patch gelcoat - got the evercoat kit

Yes .. Your patch kit will swing...

The only thing I can think of is if after you mix and color match .. you put some clear gel in your gel to help wash out your pigments..

And thats still no guarantee on swinging colors.. Mix 1-1.5% Mekp with your gel ( I mean count the drops .. about 10-12 drops per OZ ). best bet.

YD.

Re: need to patch gelcoat - got the evercoat kit

I can see why YD said it was an air bubble, the dark spot on the strake in the first pic is what a typical air bubble would look like. This doesn't mean the trailer problem didn't break it open, just that it looks like a normal air bubble. The second pic shows the scratch.

Getting the color to match can be a little tricky, you need to either be very lucky, or good, not many people are either one.

Gel coats and resins tend to become darker after being catalyzed, sometimes as they cure they will lighten back up a little, but normaly cure darker than when they started. Gel coats are formulated to resist changing color, but they still do slightly, the more catalyst you use the darker it will get. As time goes by the color of the patch will change, not much you can do about that.

The kit will work OK, even if you got gel coat from Mako it may not match very well.

Re: need to patch gelcoat - got the evercoat kit

Ok thanks, I'll just patch it and move one. The scratch in the second pic is unrelated to this incident. That one happened on a shell bed in very muddy water - so murky I couldn't see the bed. Under the keel guard is another place I patched (in front of that scratch) that dug out the gelcoat pretty bad. I used clear gel from a cultured marble shop my dad used to own. The owner was kind enough to lend me the materials. That patch turned out pretty good, but was a little off and I didn't care since the keel guard was going over it. This time I thought I'd try a marine resin kit cause the marble gelcoat seemed really hard in comparison to the coat on the boat.