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That's a waste of time and WEST system , use vinylester resin and a layer of glass mat ( non-woven cloth ).
WEST system is not a panacea , it is not the best product for most boat repairs , if you were sealing bare wood it would be a different story .
It is a lot more work and is not quite as water proof as vinylester , it just sticks to wood better .
WEST will require more sealer and topcoats to prevent UV degradation . It must be scrubbed before it is sanded to get the waxy amine blush off the surface , so paint will stick .
Once you use WEST , polyester and vinylester wont stick as good .
And last of all , when it comes to epoxies , WEST is not the best out there , it is the Budwieser of epoxies , just good marketing.
In the last 25 years I have purchased WEST in 55 gal. drums on several occasions ,so you might say I have a little experience with epoxy.I have also used System 3 , RAKA, Evercoat ,FGCI and some other nameless epoxies .
The stuff from fgci.com is just as good and a lot cheaper than any of the others .
Just for coating a surface even straight polyester resin @$20 gal. would be better and you could be sanding in an hour .
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Mike,
Good points about epoxy vs vinyl/polyester. My thinking was: the polyester gelcoat didn't stick the first time around (maybe I shouldn't be so harsh on the stuff... it is near 40 years old!).... and my experience, admittedly somewhat limited, is that epoxy is both "sticky" and flexible (at least relatively so) so it seems like a good option. Definately not the cheapest option, and perhaps not the best one either.... we shall see! ;)
WEST may not be the cheapest, but it hasn't let me down. I have had negative experiences with System 3, and have a friend who had a bad experience with MAS, so I have stuck with it. I'll have to check out this fgci stuff. Thanks for the tip!
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amine blush
any epoxy that blushes is an embarrasment, why would you work with an inferior product? It's marketing allright, Bud.
Take a look at www.epoxyproducts.com
Dig around. Fascinatin.
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I guess I was looking for input as to the cause of Brent's nonskid condition to make sure his repair will actually work.
Going through all that effort and having the problem reappear is, to my mind, a prospect too horrible to contemplate.
If the deck is stiff, it sounds like the cracks are from age and weather, rather than cracks caused by movement or stress loads. The latter require a structural fix or they will surely reoccur.
But, some more pictures showing the location and pattern of the cracks in the gelcoat around the nonskid might provide more clues.
The bridge deck would be vertical, so not cored. Movement there would be unusual and warrant further investigation.
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FYI - the bridge deck on the Ariel is a deck (cockpit seat) running athwartship aft of the companionway.
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Given that most of what I've seen is in and around the cockpit, I'll venture to guess that the chipping is because of foot traffic & the environment.
When I first purchased her, #66 had a cockpit full of leaves (she had been stored under several birch and fir trees)--much of which had composted (there was even a tiny fir sapling growing in there!). The cockpit area is more noticably cracked than, say, the cabin top, so my guess is that the cracking allowed water (trapped in the cockpit by the moist mulch) to seep in, and the freeze/thaw cycle caused the gelcoat separation. Now that I am pounding around the boat, my footfalls are probably putting the final touches on and causing the chipping.
Of course, this doesn't explain the chipping near the rudder. After some thought, I think that may be due to the water in the bilge. Since I bought her, #66 has had water there and the level hasn't changed noticably. If it is slowly seeping in through the various cracks & holes, then it must be slowly seeping out somewhere. Perhaps via osmosis out the bottom of the hull? Again, the freeze/thaw cycle could've separated the gelcoat, and now that I'm scrubbing the bottom, it is coming off.
Thanks to all for chiming in on this topic; this is why I come here. It is good to get advice on how to fix something; better to figure out the cause and keep it from happening again. It certainly helped to have someone else to bounce ideas off of.
I am curious though; if water is seeping out via osmosis, then why aren't there any blisters? Could it be the calendar age of the gelcoat that makes it inflexible and chip, or the fact that it is gelcoat made 40 years ago, and therefore it is less flexible than gelcoat made ten years ago?
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That water could be evaporating with the heat we have been having lately on the east coast .
#45 had her bilge vacumned dry and painted in May , still dry as a bone .
BTW>
My cockpit looks exactly like yours , same chipping gray non-skid. I'm gonna fill it , sand it , paint on some more non-skid and go sailing till it comes off again . It is mostly cosmetic anyway , seal the surface so the water runs off and keep it sealed (painted ) , go sailing !!
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Sounds familiar
I was scanning through Sailnet's articles when I came across this...
http://www.sailnet.com/collections/g...l%20and%20Deck
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I'm just going to fill and sand then paint with Brightsides with some non-skid added and go sailing . My boat will be legal again next week .
I say 'don't worry about it so much ' it wont sink the boat or kill anyone . Sailing is much more fun than fixing gelcoat . Make a teak grating so you cant see it if you need something to do , but go sailing .
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I'll probably do that too. There was another article on Sailnet describing how a couple put the Treadmaster on their 46-foot sailboat. Not just pricey, but according to them, more difficult and time consuming than adding grit to paint.
I'm looking for cheap & easy--in that order :D
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Go to West Marine and get the Interlux non-skid additive for paint . Nothing cheaper , easier or quicker . Looks good and works good . Put it in the Brightsides of your choice .