Well, it might make sense to wrap a glider when the glider is new...to protect the gel coat...before it crazes.

We have noticed that when we refinish a glider, that when we peel off the vinyl racing number off the tail fin and rudder, (or remove a painted on number) that the gel coat underneath that portion of the plane, is NOT crazed.

You would have to budget changing out the vinyl wrap every 4 years. vs painting the glider every 10 or whatever. You must remove the wrap periodically or else it does not come off easily after 5 or more years.

Guys who buy Ferrari's of Lambos, or Ford GT's type of cars often have clear vinyl applied to protect the factor original paint...but in the collector car world, original paint is a real value thing.....more then offsets the cost of a wrap job every 4 years.


Cookie




On Monday, December 9, 2019 at 10:56:59 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sunday, December 8, 2019 at 12:57:56 PM UTC-8, Cookie wrote:
I just got word that "vinyl wrapping" has been approved in Europe for many makes and models of gliders.

To cover crazed gel coat...IMHO...not a good choice.

Two reasons. 1080 has an outdoor exposure life of maybe 4 years....so maybe if a glider is kept inside most of the time it would be OK.

Also vinyl wrap gets almost impossible to remove if it is left on for 4 years...
In most automotive used it is sort of semi permanent, removed and replaces periodically.

As for covering the crazing...it won't really...the vinyl take on the shape of the under surface so I am afraid that the crazing will show through somewhat. Also the crazing may continue to get worse under the wrap.

I just did a wrap on my car roof, to cover up blistering and peeling clear coat...BUT I had to wet sand 400 grit and remove all traces of the clear coat before applying the wrap.

Wrapping is not all the inexpensive.

Cookie


My 2003 gelcoated glider is showing first faint signs of gel crazing. It's only out in the sun when I fly it. Seriously, I'd to know if refinishing with vinyl wrap would be a better choice than a $30K refinish in PU. As I understand it, refinish is only for cosmetic reasons. Is there any data that shows older crazed gelcoat reduces performance?