Refinishing gelcoat

I think you are on the right track, Scott. I would think that epoxy squeegeed
(sp) into the cracks would have a better chance of lasting. Then prime and
paint with Uurathane which is softer than gel-coat and you might just get your
wings refinished for about half price. The problem with a glider repair shop
trying something like this, is they would have to stand behind their work and
nobody want's to take the chance. I din't know a lot about refinishing
sailplane wings, but I do
refinish many vacuum forming tools. When I encounter
checking, gelcoat cracks or surface irregularitys that
produce markoff, I use catalized surfacing primers for cars.

We shoot it onto the surface and wipe it into the cracks/fissures
with our hands using gloves a couple coats does it. It sands well
and gets you to 600 grit smooth really quickly.

Why aren't we doing this. It seems that you could DA sand
the wings in a few hours, shoot 200 bucks worth of primer,
sand the primer in a few hours and be ready for topcoat.

Topcoats are about 150 a gallon ready to shoot.
Colorsand after paint andf you are done..........

So 600 bucks for materials and 10 hours each wing.
10 hours on the fuse/vert 4 hrs rudder, 4 hrs stab.
4 hrs each flap, 2 hrs each alerion 8 hrs diasaaembly
8 hrs reassembly.

66 hrs labor + 600 material....... 3100 for a repaint with auto paint??
337 field approval, logbook entry and move on.

Just thinking out loud.....

Scott

JJ Sinclair

I had an LS-3 that was refinished this way (or so I was told). The
cracks returned after a few years.


JJ Sinclair wrote:

I think you are on the right track, Scott. I would think that epoxy squeegeed
(sp) into the cracks would have a better chance of lasting. Then prime and
paint with Uurathane which is softer than gel-coat and you might just get your
wings refinished for about half price. The problem with a glider repair shop
trying something like this, is they would have to stand behind their work and
nobody want's to take the chance. I din't know a lot about refinishing
sailplane wings, but I do

refinish many vacuum forming tools. When I encounter
checking, gelcoat cracks or surface irregularitys that
produce markoff, I use catalized surfacing primers for cars.

We shoot it onto the surface and wipe it into the cracks/fissures
with our hands using gloves a couple coats does it. It sands well
and gets you to 600 grit smooth really quickly.

Why aren't we doing this. It seems that you could DA sand
the wings in a few hours, shoot 200 bucks worth of primer,
sand the primer in a few hours and be ready for topcoat.

Topcoats are about 150 a gallon ready to shoot.
Colorsand after paint andf you are done..........

So 600 bucks for materials and 10 hours each wing.
10 hours on the fuse/vert 4 hrs rudder, 4 hrs stab.
4 hrs each flap, 2 hrs each alerion 8 hrs diasaaembly
8 hrs reassembly.

66 hrs labor + 600 material....... 3100 for a repaint with auto paint??
337 field approval, logbook entry and move on.

Just thinking out loud.....

Scott


JJ Sinclair

Greg wrote
I had an LS-3 that was refinished this way (or so I was told). The
cracks returned after a few years.

So much for that idea. Do you know who refinished your LS-3, Greg? I know of an
ASK-21 that lasted pretty well for about 8 or 9 years, that had been refinished
this way and left out all the time. Obviously, all the lose stuff must be
removed, but my thought was to leave the small cracks that didn't go all the
way down to the glass. By using a long air-board, the contouring would be
munimal, if say 50% of the old gel-coat was left.


JJ Sinclair