Clean off Cabin Top

Bad News! All the deck hardware was bedded in Silicone. Welcome to 1981! I seem to remember back then we all thought that Silicone was the wonder sealant that would replace all others. We've learned a bit since then!

In the meantime, I had to cut the silicone away with a knife, then scrape and scrape with a little pick.

The cabin top hardware is old and doesn't work. I mean, not only is it out of date but when the dodger was added you couldn't turn the halyard winches, and the lines didn't have fair leads. So the first thing I have to do is take off these horrible half-cams and remove the chrome winch. The only thing I'm leaving on is the self tailer.

I cleaned the holes with a small grinder bit on my trusty Dremel tool. Then I changed bits (since the first bit probably was contaminated with silicone) and overground the holes top and bottom to create an hourglass shape.

In the picture below, I washed it well with Acetone (wearing gloves).

I would also like to take this opportunity to extoll the value of the Handy Dremel Tool with the Right Angle Attachment. In this situation, you can take the tool and lay it on a support on the deck (in this case the support is a pocket first aid kit) in such a way that the head of the grinding tool is perfectly flush with the deck. Thus, you can grind down without having your Handy Dremel Tool go out of control and creating a gash that you might need to blame on the previous owner.

All holes are sealed from underneath. Then I made a medium putty from West System Epoxy and Colloidal Silica, and injected the holes.

Note that the holes aren't topped off, but room is left for gel coat. Next time I'll top them off then grind down.

I know the gel coat doesn't match well. The cabin top hasn't been washed since I started this project. I've also discovered that what is a perfect match at noon is a total mismatch 4 hours later, because the old and the new material reflect light differently. Sigh.

I totally screwed up getting the gelcoat
flush and nice looking!

I had this silly idea that I would put the gel coat on, then clean everything up and I'd be done.
Boy, was I a fool! Excuse me for reading Ben Casey's book and following the directions... Ha!
After talking it over with just about everyone I know in three different marinas (I needed a break and a half-dozen beers) I discovered that no one actually does gel coat repairs. Everyone pays someone else to do gel coat repairs.

So, once I saw the results from my first learning attempt... Well, first off we all know that you shouldn't put Polyester Resins on top of Epoxy Resins. But "the book" says that it's okay in this case. Sorry. Three of my thirty-four patches popped off when I picked at them to see how well they were stuck. And they all looked like a total amateur did the job.

Oh, did I mention that I'm a total amateur? Before we go any further I'd like to point that out.

So. I spent a day scrubbing all the dirt and old silicone off the cabin top and preparing to do it again.. Wow. It took a full day... Now there's nothing there but the actual old gel coat, faded into different colors based upon various years of UV exposure.

You can see the nice circles that my Trusty Dremel Tool created in the cabin top. Yes, they're too big. Sorry. More room for a polyester to polyester bond, in my revisionist opinion.

I cleaned the ground down area with Styrene, because it will reactivate the resin in the underlying laminate, and promote a strong bond. Sure. It will also dissolve my liver and central nervous system -- both of which are already questionable. So if you do this wear a respirator. I'm wearing a new one, with new filters which are supposed to handle this stuff, and I can still smell it. Do NOT get this stuff on your skin. It's weird. When I get Acetone on my gloves, it feels cold. When I get Styrene on my gloves, if feels hot. Maybe there's a reason it comes in a GLASS bottle. (I only have the bottle sitting on the boat for the picture.)

I'm not exactly proud of the results of my month of work... Everyone tells me it looks nice, but I think that they're just being kind. Eventually, I'll paint it. If I can get the paint to match.

You can see the final result in the margins of the other pics that are on the way, as I install new deck hardware. . .

Now, I don't need to tell everyone about all my little mistakes. Let's just say that I ground it out and redid it three times over three weekends and eventually decided that I didn't want a "perfect" job, just a respectable one.

Here's the nutshell of what I learned that I did NOT get out of all the stuff I've read: Gel coat is like laminating resin, in that it won't cure when exposed to air. Use that to your advantage. Paint up layers with a little tiny paintbrush. I mean, tiny like the kind you get at an artist's supply store. I got mine at Home Depot, but they only came in packages of 5 different sizes, of which I used two and tossed the rest. (I'm going to keep my eye out for artists supply stores now...) The layers will chemically bond, since surface is never cured.

Using a syringe didn't work for me. The paintbrush worked.

Once the gel coat is built up above the deck top, you can cover with plastic and let it cure. I taped the plastic into place and left for the weekend... I know the color still isn't right, but with faded, 21 year old gel coat it's really hard to match. The color of old vs. new actually is different under different kinds of light that comes at different angles, because the old gel coat is worn down and reflects light differently!
I would swear I had a perfect blend of white, yellow and a touch of black. It looked great at noon.
By eight p.m. it looked totally wrong. From now on I'm only going sailing at noon.