I’ve salvaged 3 composite kayaks that all have some small gelcoat dings (a few are fairly deep) that I would like to repair. The hulls that need patching are black, white, royal blue and golden yellow. I noticed that Evercoat Marine sells this kit for $50 that includes all 4 colors with the paste, hardener and film. Before I try this out I thought I’d check to see if anybody else here had tried this stuff and could offer feedback. TIA.
I’ve used it a lot on one boat, and on a few others as well. Works fine if you follow the directions. Just be aware that you’ll never get the color to be a 100% match. Even white doesn’t guarantee a perfect repair, because there are many shades of white used in boat construction. Personally, I stopped coloring the white for a few years, and it made some people a little freaked out when I put the boat on the car, because the repaired areas looked like holes when the sun showed through them.
Seriously, though, it will work fine.
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Thank you for that information.
I don’t expect flawless matching, just to restore the integrity of the surface. The boat that most needs it has forklift scars from a shipping company with some gashes down to the glass fiber. The deck on that one has a fancy two color “fade” pattern (royal blue to bright yellow) with the added complication of metal flake sparkles embedded in the surface. It would be folly to imagine matching that. Fortunately, I don’t really mind my well-loved gear looking well-used. And any patching I do will look better than the big splotches of emergency patching tape it has worn for two years.
I do have a friend and neighbor, an old surfer dude, who has offered to help. He used to shape and gelcoat longboards as well as repair powerboat hulls.
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A number of years ago our Club arranged with a boatyard to conduct a composite boat repair clinic in the winter when work was slow for them. The cost was nominal. The person that worked with me had many years of experience and did the color matching for my “white” hull. The scratches and gouges where the repair was done were totally invisible.
Since then I’ve done several repairs using the Evercoat gelcoat repair kit, but just the white gelcoat without the color matching additives. The brilliant white of the gelcoat does not come close to my supposedly white hull, but I’m not concerned with the appearance of the hull, only that it is seaworthy. Most of the touchup is below the waterline anyway.
The Evercoat gelcoat is easy to work with, but keep in mind that the working time can be short. Uncatalyzed gelcoat can last for a few years, so that makes the cost more bearable. The are many videos on gelcoat repair on the West Marine and Evercoat websites last I looked. I used the one-step gelcoat and it worked out fine. Some gelcoats require more than one step for the gelcoat to harden properly.
A serviceable repair is easy, but getting a showroom finish takes time and patience. Color matching is an art. For smaller repairs the gelcoat can be brushed on, but larger repairs, most manufacturers recommend application by spray gun.
If working on a Kevlar hull be very careful when sanding not to sand into the fabric. Abraded Kevlar will fuzz up and make any recoating very difficult. Some boatyards will not do repairs on Kevlar kayaks due to the possibility of this as they do not think a kayak expensive enough to risk it.
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