Gelcoat Repairs - 1

Right, this will either turn out to be a "How to" or a "How not to" guide!

Here is a picture of the chip on the top of the rear offside wheel arch caused by me knocking the bundy tube for the wipers out of the loft - it dropped end on onto the wheelarch (this was quite a while ago - I've been keeping it quiet and can only just talk about it now!):The first step is to make it much worse by grinding it out with the dremel to chamfer off the sides and then cleaning the area up with acetone:Then I masked the area off just in case I got carried away with the gel:There were also three other areas on the back - another scratch caused by me by inadvertently pushing the car back against the garage door handle! The other two low down ones were slight blemishes from the mould - and looking at them now you would not notice them normally! These were all ground out and masked as above:

The next step was to mix up some gel - one teaspoon of gel to three drops of catalyst (I have experimented before with this). Too much catalyst will cause small air bubbles to appear - as will mixing it too vigorously:

This was then brushed into the areas leaving them slightly proud (the gel does shrink slightly) and the area was then covered in clingflim as air needs to be excluded for the gel to harden:

So.... looks like some sanding and cutting to be done tomorrow - assuming it is not too cold tonight and the gel goes off - don't throw away the left over gel - it will tell you how well the gel is curing.