A good marine filler?

J

jdenson

Recruit
Joined
Apr 10, 2011
Messages
1
I am restoring my old boat. The gel coat is old and has already crazed and cracked in a few areas. The hull is sound. I am looking for some ideas of a filler to apply to the topside. I was thinking epoxy resin with a light weight micro balloon filler. Does anyone have an idea if this combination would work well even with the crazing areas?
 
ajgraz

ajgraz

Lieutenant Commander
Joined
Mar 1, 2010
Messages
1,858
Re: A good marine filler?

I did exactly that as a prep for spider cracks before topside paint. Worked well.

Hint: work some talc into the mixture, makes sanding 1000x easier.

Hint 2: If you are trying to match some shade of white, work some titanium dioxide into the mixture.
 
erikgreen

erikgreen

Captain
Joined
Jan 8, 2007
Messages
3,105
Re: A good marine filler?

Epoxy will yellow, so you'll need to coat it with something.

If it were me, I'd figure out why it cracked and make sure the structure under the cracked areas is sound, then I'd consider doing gel coat repairs with color matched gel (for small spots) or using marine-tex white or adtech p-14 putty to fill the cracks after I'd ground them out with a dremel tool or similar. If you don't grind them out whatever you put on will come off or crack pretty quickly.

Make sure you fix the problem that caused the cracking first, otherwise the cracks will just come back.

Erik
 
Yacht Dr.

Yacht Dr.

Vice Admiral
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
5,581
Re: A good marine filler?

Eric is on track here..

What Boat are you working on .. Got some pics the the Crazing and Cracking please..

I would stay away from epoxy and micro balloons .. unless you have a wooden boat ;) .

YD.
 
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