Well, this is the official thread to follow the step by step progress of my metalflake gelcoat job on the
'69 Wriedt Stinger. Kyle and I have a rough deadline to have this boat floating and fully functional by July 13th - The weekend of
The Avi trip.
The boat has been put upside down on a dolly that kyle and I built. We filled all of the scrapes, gouges, chips, etc with
Sea Goin' Poxy Putty.
Since we did the repairs with the putty, there are lots of patches of white. This will show through the metalflake if we lay it down right on top of it. We are going to first paint a base pigment coat that is close to the shade of the metalflake. After this, I will lay down a clear coat on top of that. I will use a
Flake Buster with
Old School Flake and apply it simiar to this
article. Just as the arttThe metalflake will be applied directly (spread dry) to the clear coat while it is still wet and tacky. After the metal flake has been applied, I will then begin the gelcoat process which will be several coats of clear gelcoat and a final coat of
gelcoat and Duratech.
The final coat of duratech is questionable since I will be doing several coats of clear gelcoat before the final coat of duratech and gelcoat, it will be severly orange peeled already. The duratech helps the last coat lay flatter to avoid excessive sanding to smooth it out. I guess I will use my best judgement at that time to determine if duratech would be useless or not for this project.
Please note that this is the FIRST time I have gelcoated something. If you see me steering myself into a disaster or a minor mistake, please step in and correct me. All suggestions and comments will be taken positively and there are no stupid questions since I have spent the past couple of months asking many myself trying to learn this process.
I will update this thread often as this aspect of the project continues.
