1979 Viking build

[tnelsmn]

Looks great, Lake! That sure brings me back! I went 220 dry, 400 dry, then started wet with 600, then 800, 1000. The the 220 I didn't take all the roughness out, I left some to get cleared off with the 220 scratches as I moved to finer paper.

[LakeFever]

Thanks Tony. Anyone know the metal flake size streams came with? Im guessing .035”?

[tnelsmn]

Thanks Tony. Anyone know the metal flake size streams came with? Im guessing .035”?

From what I was able to figure out it looked like a mix of .015 and .025, I added .008 to the silver on my boat as well.

[LakeFever]

I spent some time searching and came up with nothing solid and yours looks great so i’ll go with similar. Now if i could just pick a color lol

[LakeFever]

I realized what happened with the gel texture today. Ive painted a lot of cars and other stuff and seldom if ever does it need a polish but this gel experience was just like spraying undercoating. A splattery mess regardless of how i adjusted the gun so i figured this is just how gel behaves and i sprayed it. Having zero prior experience spraying gel before this project along with using an accuspray 1 hgp for the first time after researching suitable gel guns along with watching literally every youtube vid on spraying gel that i could find, i was expecting some orange peel but what we achieved was next level brutal orange peel and we cut through to primer in so many places we decided to spray the whole thing in gel again and go thicker. Sanding it down again was not a lot of fun but it had to be done.

So fast forward to today and i get set up to spray along with a new spray head and on my test panel BAM! I laid down a few coats that were so smooth it almost looked like paint. In my excitement and melee i started laying down the first coat on the hull and man its looking great! Then the gel kicked before i got it all sprayed out and i had to replace the nozzle again which i did, and then Bam! Undercoating splatter orange peel again fortunately on my test panel not on the hull. So now im majorly confused i messed with the settings and saw no improvement so we hit the brakes and start looking into cause. After 20 mins or so of siphoning out ideas then it dawns on me; these plastic tips are not all that equal ( shipping damage maybe? They were packed loose with the kit and hard parts in sub par packaging ) and worse of all i have one 2.0 left to try and two 1.8’s. I decide to stuff the last 2.0 tip on and try it with 750ml of gel catalyzed at 1.5% and thinned 3% with styrene no wax. Once again bam! Beauty finish its laying down like paint once again on my test panel so once again i start laying it on the hull and it went great! I had some close calls with kicking resin in the tip but ran acetone through it after each 750 of gel and that worked very well. We did two coats this way and added wax to our third coat and the coverage looks excellent. The only bummer was the very last cup i filled and only 400ml too i guess i didnt get the kicked gel fully cleaned out of the tip so the one side in the first two feet at the bow it laid down a little orange peely but nothing we can’t sand and buff. The rest of it, well take a look at the pics and see for yourself. This hull refinishing and gel coat application was by far the most challenging aspect of the build.

[phil blomquist]

Sorry will go back and catch up but did read your last post on the gel spraying. I went through a few guns myself doing the last two boats. So many variables can and will happen on any givin day my biggest problem maybe was mix ratio and materials combined with heat and humidity. We used no wax gel on all coats but added clear gloss additive at 30 percent after first color coat which really helped the flow. Then finished with50 percent clear ( which the clear actually thins the gel) and that really helped lay it down very little texture. Then next day followed up with Durateck Sunshield topcoat clear.

[LakeFever]

Initially that was my plan to use duratec high gloss additive but its not recommended for below the water line so we bailed on that plan. The biggest issue i have with these materials is lack of experience so we are going solely on what we could hear and read about and theres so many approaches i figured best to opt on the manufacture spec. The whole gel spray gun thing is a solid concern.

for what its worth the accuspray 1 hgp worked well when it worked but id give the manufacture qc on it at a 5/10 its not the best built product and im surprised being 3m they typically provide 9/10 stuff. That said i would have ruined a few spray guns doing this without the replaceable nozzles but the poor spray consistency made this job a lot harder than it should have been

[Jmr1974]

Lakefever, I’m thinking of completely sanding off the old gel on my running surface like you and start from scratch like you did. I’m guessing you did it because of all the repairs you needed to do and color change? My bottom is all beat up also and the old white gel is crazing like crazy. I’m not changing color tho, going to make it white again. By the way your resto looks awesome, I gotta catch back up with mine!i

[LakeFever]

Thanks Jmr we have really had our hands full with the gel coat job. The main reason we stripped the gel off was because there were a few holes completely through in a few different areas around the front that required all the gel in that area to come off and the pad had a wonky shape which we discovered was from a previous repair so all that gel came off and finally there was a lot of gel crazing near the first chine which also had to come off. It didnt leave much factory gel remaining. Sanding the factory metal flake gel off was a huge time suck but its not technically challenging and now i have complete awareness of what this hull is made of, literally.

As for the gel, I have a lot of auto paint experience i used to run a body shop eons ago but that experience gave me confidence that the faring and refinishing part of this build would be predictable and that confidence worked against me and made this harder than it had to be unfortunately. I can offer some solid guidance on this process dos and donts if you like i’ll think about the process and post up about it when i have it clear of mind. Today i feel run over by a bus we are so busy with work on top of all the boat stuff

[Jmr1974]

Thanks Jmr we have really had our hands full with the gel coat job. The main reason we stripped the gel off was because there were a few holes completely through in a few different areas around the front that required all the gel in that area to come off and the pad had a wonky shape which we discovered was from a previous repair so all that gel came off and finally there was a lot of gel crazing near the first chine which also had to come off. It didnt leave much factory gel remaining. Sanding the factory metal flake gel off was a huge time suck but its not technically challenging and now i have complete awareness of what this hull is made of, literally.

As for the gel, I have a lot of auto paint experience i used to run a body shop eons ago but that experience gave me confidence that the faring and refinishing part of this build would be predictable and that confidence worked against me and made this harder than it had to be unfortunately. I can offer some solid guidance on this process dos and donts if you like i’ll think about the process and post up about it when i have it clear of mind. Today i feel run over by a bus we are so busy with work on top of all the boat stuff

What grit did you use to get thru the old gel and not be to aggressive to gouge the glass under it?

[LakeFever]

What grit did you use to get thru the old gel and not be to aggressive to gouge the glass under it?

we used diablo brand 40 grit on da’s to strip the gel. We finish sanded the gel and all faring putty with 80 grit before priming. We sanded the primer with a combo of 80 and 120 before we sprayed the gel. 80 on the running surface and 120 on the hull sides. Didnt seem to matter the gel easily filled the 80.

After much messing about even though this flies well beyond “officially recommended” settings i sprayed with 85 psi pressure which brought the gauge on the gun down to 45psi with the trigger pulled. I ran the fluid flow at 5 o’clock ( a tad past half turn open ) and the fan control at 2:30 ( about 3/4+ Open ) using a 2.0 tip with the 3m accuspray 1 hgp system using the collapsable cups and disposable caps with screens removed.

one tip i suggest thats VERY important is make sure the gel is fresh! The first batch i bought sat for a couple months before spraying and its noticeably thicker now than the stuff we just sprayed. We sprayed duratec vinylester primer on before gel to bury the original flake which worked great. We sprayed that out with the same gun straight out of the can catalyzed at 2% no thinning added. The gel we sprayed thinned with 3% styrene and catalyzed at 1.5% mekp in three heavy coats with the third coat wax additive at 3%

with that configuration it took about five minutes to spray out 750ml and one final tip is to shake lightly ( agitate ) the gel frequently while spraying it wants to kick fast spraying for whatever reason. Seemed to only gel up in the nozzle first. Hope this is some help for you

its easy now that i know lol

[Jmr1974]

we used diablo brand 40 grit on da’s to strip the gel. We finish sanded the gel and all faring putty with 80 grit before priming. We sanded the primer with a combo of 80 and 120 before we sprayed the gel. 80 on the running surface and 120 on the hull sides. Didnt seem to matter the gel easily filled the 80.

After much messing about even though this flies well beyond “officially recommended” settings i sprayed with 85 psi pressure which brought the gauge on the gun down to 45psi with the trigger pulled. I ran the fluid flow at 5 o’clock ( a tad past half turn open ) and the fan control at 2:30 ( about 3/4+ Open ) using a 2.0 tip with the 3m accuspray 1 hgp system using the collapsable cups and disposable caps with screens removed.

one tip i suggest thats VERY important is make sure the gel is fresh! The first batch i bought sat for a couple months before spraying and its noticeably thicker now than the stuff we just sprayed. We sprayed duratec vinylester primer on before gel to bury the original flake which worked great. We sprayed that out with the same gun straight out of the can catalyzed at 2% no thinning added. The gel we sprayed thinned with 3% styrene and catalyzed at 1.5% mekp in three heavy coats with the third coat wax additive at 3%

with that configuration it took about five minutes to spray out 750ml and one final tip is to shake lightly ( agitate ) the gel frequently while spraying it wants to kick fast spraying for whatever reason. Seemed to only gel up in the nozzle first. Hope this is some help for you

its easy now that i know lol

Thanks for the tips. Any idea how much white gel I’ll need? If you look at my boat hull I’m only using white gel on the are that is already white ( running surface) they sell the stuff buy the quart or gallon, I would think a gallon would go along way for the area I’m doing but I really have no idea. I guess my ? Is how much did it take on your boat?

[LakeFever]

I used about a gallon but its tricky to get it done without any wasted gel. I bought two gallons to make sure we had enough but spoiled quite a bit with it kicking in the cup before i got the gun dialed in to flow faster and reduce the catalyst down allowing more pot time. All but a couple of my 750’s kicked off before i laid it all down and it wasnt even that hot out so i dont know why it was kicking so fast. It seemed to have something to do with the spraying because it would gel up in the throat of the tip first

[tnelsmn]

Looking good, Lake! Laid it down pretty well. That stuff sure is a challenge. Like you said, now that you've done it, it's easy haha.

[LakeFever]

Thanks Tony yes it sure is a steep learning curve. The hardest part is the second you catalyze the clock is ticking and the window to use it is small. I dont see how im kicking gel at 1.5% in 65 degree temperature in five-10 minutes but thats what was happening