Fiberglass repair and painting????

[Jeff K]

My trailer has some damage to the gelcoat. It is from thousands and thousands of miles of rock chips and... I parked it next to my house for a while a few years ago and the runoff from the roof put tiny pieces of gravel from the shingles on it, they self embedded in the gelcoat, deep, when I removed the stones there were tiny craters down to the white fiberglass.

So, the question is/are

What is the best way to fill these pits in the gelcoat? Can it be fixed?

I had thought about just shooting it with truck bed liner but I'm afraid that might be a one way road I may be sorry I took.

Any ideas?

[R J]

Jeff, do you know Lady Draco from Virginia who rides a Trike or two?

She truck liner coated her rear fenders on the front side to take care of rock chips.

I'm going to do the same to my bike trailer when I get to feeling better.   The front protector gets all kind of crap slung at it off the rear tires of the pickie up.

[R J]

Jeff, I can get ahold of her for ya and tell her to send ya an email, and maybe a picture or 2.   Her and Don are good people.

rjb448ATgmailDOTcom in case ya don't have mine.

[Jeff K]

Maybe I'll try my hand at gelcoat repair, and if it looks like crap, shoot it with bed liner.
Bed liner = easy
Proper repair = time consuming, but I get to buy more tools.
Or farm it out and bitch about the cost and the crappy quality?
 

[RP#62]

Spoke with my son who was in the boat repair business and he said to wipe it with acetone.  Scuff the surface to degloss, then apply gel coat with a squeegie in the low spots to fill the craters.  Gel coat is not engineered to flow, its not self leveling, it won't go on like paint.  You are going to have to sand and buff to get it to the final shape and finish.  He said its fixable, but its labor intensive.
-RP

[Jeff K]

Spoke with my son who was in the boat repair business and he said to wipe it with acetone.  Scuff the surface to degloss, then apply gel coat with a squeegie in the low spots to fill the craters.  Gel coat is not engineered to flow, its not self leveling, it won't go on like paint.  You are going to have to sand and buff to get it to the final shape and finish.  He said its fixable, but its labor intensive.
-RP

Good info. Thanks.

[rodeo1]

jeff

go get a can of duraglass from your freindly auto body paint store. it mixes like bondo but is reinforced with fiberglass. sand your trailer with 80 grit paper wherever you have the problem and mix up the duraglass and spread it just thick enough to fill the little holes, then block sand it, prime it, and paint it. you may, if the pits are very small be able to sand them down and fill them with primer surfacer, but they need to be pretty small for that. if i was around where you are i would help you, i grew up working in a body shop family.