Refinishing: Who has tried a shortcut?

Ian,

I have had excellent results with a 'partial' gelcoat removal/refinish ...
repainted with Simtek Prestec ... fuse 5 years old, still perfiect ... as
are wings 3 and 2 years since refinish. This is a lot of work, BTW.
Documented on SRA site ...

http://sailplane-racing.org/Articles...asw20_wing.htm

BTW ... did I say this is a lot of work. JJ ... apologize for stealing your
punch line. :-)

KK
Ken Kochanski


"Ian Forbes" wrote in message
news
Time for a round up.

I started this thread 4 days ago and I asked:

There has been quite a bit on refinishing on RAS recently. Most people
advocate that when gel-coat starts cracking up, it is essential to
remove
it ALL.

There has been lots of advice and theory as to why the above is true. No
doubt it is the recommended approach - recommended by many who are not in
a
position where they might have to pay for the work!

However there was little response to my question:

Does anybody out their own a ship which was refinished without removing
all the gel-coat? What is the service history of these gliders?

So far there have been two postings of problems with re-finishes. Neither
of
these involved a polyurathane finish. Gliders re-finished with extensive
or
complete removal of the old gel-coat have held up - at least as well as
the
original gel coat.

So I will extend the question. Does anybody anybody know of gliders that
have been refinished with polyurathane and subsequently experienced
problems?

I can answer that by saying I know of one glider that was re-finished with
polyurathane about 10 years ago. There is some localised paint cracking on
the tailplane and rudder which suggests that there were some areas of poor
preparation during the refinish. I suspect that the glass skin on these
areas is thiner more flexible which results in a finish that is more
susceptible to cracking. This was not an "expensive" refinish job, for
example the ailerons and flaps were not removed during the respray. But
overall the glider still looks very neat and I think I can say this finish
has lasted as least as well as many factory gel coat finishes.


Ian