Hole to fill in a hole in transom?

[Jeff_S]

I am pretty new to working with epoxy for filling holes. I have twelve holes near the top of my transom where a poling platform was through bolted. I already filled the holes with epoxy and carpeted over the inside so that it looks from the inside like a platform was never there. I want to make the outside look as good as possible. Here is my dilema. I sanded the epoxy down and now I need to paint over it try and match the color of the gel coat. The color is off white. How do I finish it off to make it look like the platform was never there?

[Jeff_S]

I don't know where my mind was, but I just wanted to say I was trying to fill a hole in my transom, not a hole in a hole. GEEEEZZ

[H2Onut]

You can get gel coat tinted to match your exiting color. i.e. provide a sample of what ya got and they can have it mixed.

Or buy a tint kit yourself and experiment till ya get the tint correct.


www.fgci.com will mix gel to match but must provide a sample.

[Jeff_S]

I bought one of those kits where you can mix it yourself, but it said not to apply over epoxy. Are they all like this?

[H2Onut]

You will here both sides of this story, I was also told no gel over epoxy.

Other opinion is to scratch it up, hit it with some solvent and gel will stick.

My personal deal is that I used epoxy and sprayed gel, 8 months later gel is peeling where epoxy was. I did not do any special prep to it other than sanding and wiping with Denatured Alcohol.

But I am NOT a paint geek/guru.

maybe a trick to get it to stick???

[Techno]

epoxy needs to be cleaned with water not solvent.
The other thing I memeber from a working persons post was not to use solvent after you have scratched any of them, it melts the plastic slightly and smooths it out.
If I was antsy about putting gell down over epoxy then I would paint on some poly resin first, like a primer. Then do the gel deal.

Something I beat to death is if you can't hide a repair then make it obvious, change it so it looks like it was supposed to be there. The design depends on the item to be camoflaged but bullet holes could work. You would need more than 12 though to hide them.

[dan]

I used west epoxy ,7 oz cloth layers, 1-1/2 oz cloth and epoxy with filler sanding between each layer to remove the waxy coating that forms during cure. The area was about 10 by 15 foot. I sanded,tacked and sprayed heavy coats of gel. The west epoxy had cured for a couple of days after the final layer before we gelled it. I sanded down through different grits to 2000, buffed and it has never done anything but act like regular gelcoat. I did not spray over anything that was solid cured resin.

To make it look like there was never a hole in a spot you are going to have to blend into a larger surrounding area, so you might as well protect yourself by covering the hole with 1-1/2 oz cloth. Sand down a dip mayb three times the diameter of the hole with the hole as the center, cover with light cloth and another layer with filler. Let cure, sand and gel.

Good luck. Dan