Sunfish Dagger-Board & Rudder Refinish Job

This weekend I refinished my Sunfish Dagger-Board and Rudder. They had a pretty decent existing finish, and to tell you the truth, I was too lazy to strip them all the way down to bare wood. I didn’t want to end up putting 8-10 coats of varnish on the boards. I sanded them with my palm sander. First with 120, then with 80 (ran out of 120). Then I applied some wood putty, let dry, and then sanded again with 220. Then I wiped them down with paint thinner and a tack cloth. Here are pictures of the boards with 2 coats of varnish. I plan to put a 3^rd coat on tonight.

Sunfish Gel Coat Patch - Part 3

Well here is my boat all cleaned up and ready for the water! I put another coat of gel coat over the repair area with foam brushes for the 3rd time. The finish came out smooth and shinny. I then wet-sanded with some fine grit paper, and decided enough was enough. The hull is water tight and "good enough". I compounded and waxed (lots of dirt came up off the gel coat), and installed my ratchet block. I also tied a rope bridle using some Marlow line and a few bowlines. Perhaps in the winter I will install a new bridle. I also reinstalled the painted coaming, and re-caulked it last night.

Sunfish Gel Coat Patch - Part 2

Well I sanded and sanded, and applied my white gel coat mix, with yellow tint. The second patch looks better, but let me give you one piece of advice. Gel coat changes color when it cures. The color I had matched when applied was perfect (or close), but to my dismay, when it hardened it brightened up. Anyway, it is good enough for right now. After the boat has been hauled in for the winter, I might give it another try. Although cosmetically it is not the best, it is completely water tight, and has strengthened the area considerably. This weekend, I am going to compound and wax, and move on to other items.

The Results!

Well I sanded down my fix, and wasn't too happy with the results. The neutral gel coat that I used, seem to have a transparent quality that showed the previous damage below. Structurally it is fine. I will sand it down to a certain point, and re-gel coat the area with a white colored gel coat paste with the appropriate yellow tint. Also I wasn't too pleased with my attempted color match. If at first you don't succeed, try try again I guess.

Gel Coat Fix/Repair The Sunfish Deck

Well, I finally took the plunge and refinished the portion of the deck that was damaged. I have never worked with gel coat, but the repair went smoothly enough. I used a large portion of the can of paste to spread over the repair, and a large amount of hardener.

I was all set to add the proper amount of hardener, when I squeezed the bottle of hardener too aggressively, and it squirted into my yellow gel coat mix. After that I had to eyeball it (which is not recommended). My thinking was that if I used 3/4 of the can of gel coat, then I should use 3/4 of the bottle of hardener. The mix worked, and it started to harden within the hour. I guess I was lucky.

I started to use the gel coat paste right away after I added the hardener, the consistency was like cake icing. As it started to harden, it came more like peanut butter.

In the end I think I slathered on too much gel coat. I started to wet sand the repair to make it flush with the deck, but I was getting no where. This weekend, I am going to dry sand the repair with a palm sander - 180 grit paper, make it flush, and then wet sand.

After that, I am going to compound the repair, and wax. After that we will see how detectable the repair is. I am not too concerned how perfect the repair is, I just wanted a strong repair. The previous owner spilled something that had burned right through to the gel coat. This would have caused water to be absorbed and would have weakened the area over time. The previous owner slapped on some paint to fix the job. However, I wanted to go one step further and repair it properly.

There was also a small chipped area in the mast tube that I fixed. I will have to sand that area as well. Here are the before and after photos. I know it doesn't look pretty now, but with some sanding, compounding, and waxing, it might look a whole lot better. The chalkiness of the gel coat is just due to the run off of the sanding.