The color Green

S

ssobol

Active member
I want to move my GPS puck antenna which is attached to the brow of the roof near the driver's position. This will leave a 3/4" hole in the roof. While this is easy to patch, the hole will be in the green trim color on the visor over the windows.

I will fill the hole with thickened epoxy, but this will leave a noticeable mark.

Does anyone know the specification of the green color used on the 2008 boats? Perhaps touch up paint is available.

I checked Spectrum color but they only sell C-Dory green gel coat by the gallon. The repair kit available is only in white.

If I use a gelcoat repair kit (mix your own color) will this bond with the epoxy hole filler?
 
IIRC I don't think gelcoat will adhere to epoxy. I used polyester resin on my stern repairs and remember something about it from the gelcoat repair class at the factory.
 
ssobol":v161bkl1 said:
Does anyone know the specification of the green color used on the 2008 boats? Perhaps touch up paint is available.
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I can't remember where this info came from, but I have it in my C-Dory Google docs:

Forest Green: Cook Composites # 953-GJ-081

Different sources say different things about gelcoat and epoxy. According to the Gougeon Bros (West System), gelcoat can adhere to epoxy if you remove the "amine blush", which is some skin that forms on cured epoxy. Other sources say it won't hold.

Since it isn't near or below the waterline, I can't imagine it's too risky to try.
 
Have you thought about turning a nice piece of wood to fit over the hole? That might be an option that doesn't cost much, looks good, and will get people asking... What's that...?
 
One other thing -- after rereading that, 3/4" seems like a big hole if it's going through a thin area like the brow. Might need to do some glassing from underneath to support a patch otherwise it seems like the epoxy might just pop out or crack.
 
The suggestion to turn a piece of wood to fit the hole suggests getting a piece of dowel and epoxying it in place (I don't have an easy way to turn a piece of wood accurately). The hole might be less than 3/4", but it's probably bigger than 1/2".
 
ssobol":23doo8w4 said:
The suggestion to turn a piece of wood to fit the hole suggests getting a piece of dowel and epoxying it in place (I don't have an easy way to turn a piece of wood accurately). The hole might be less than 3/4", but it's probably bigger than 1/2".
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Any friends with a wood lathe? If not, a high school wood shop might want a 'commission'. I was just thinking of a button, maybe two inches across.
 
Wandering Sagebrush":aefcti2y said:
Any friends with a wood lathe? If not, a high school wood shop might want a 'commission'. I was just thinking of a button, maybe two inches across.
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Probably could get a wood cabinet knob from HD or Lowe's and cut it down a bit. I'll have to look at it after I get the puck out.
 
I agree with Ferrett30--that you will want to have some glass involved in the repair of a hole about 3/4" diameter. I would grind out at the bottom an then put in some 1808 cloth in the bottom, larger than the hole by about half an inch, then circles of cloth with resin to fill the majority of the hole.

As for gel coat and epoxy. It can be done several ways--one is to use vinyl ester resin, instead of epoxy. Another is to use a tie coat between the epoxy and gel coat. A thin layer of gel coat may stick to epoxy if all of the amines are removed from the surface of the epoxy. The epoxy has to be properly catalyzed, well sanded and washed to remove any amines. Any secondary bond with polyester resins are not as good as primary bonds, or a chemical bond with epoxy.

How about a spot light, an air horn, maybe a hand grip up there? I am sure that there are all sorts of things which an be useful and cosmetically acceptable...
 
thataway":1b8zvze0 said:
How about a spot light, an air horn, maybe a hand grip up there? I am sure that there are all sorts of things which an be useful and cosmetically acceptable...
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The reason I want to move the GPS puck is to put a handles near the front of the roof (as seen in another C-Dory gallery). The wife would like something to grip in that location when dealing with lines on the forward cleats. Having a handle there will also be useful when going to the bow. The previous owner put the GPS puck on the brow above the right front window and the VHF antenna mount on the left side. The GPS puck has two screws and a hole through the visor for the cable to come up from the bottom. My idea is to move the puck about 8 inches towards the center of the boat. I could just have the hand rail cross over the puck, but a SS hand rail might mess up the GPS reception.

I don't want the handles too close to the edge to prevent cracking of the FG. Each handle would go nicely basically along the line between the color and the white gelcoat on the visor. Unfortunately that's where the GPS antenna also lies.
 
ferret30":1y8ce0a8 said:
I can't remember where this info came from, but I have it in my C-Dory Google docs:

Forest Green: Cook Composites # 953-GJ-081
Click to expand...

I have the same gelcoat number in my notes. I believe Scot from Triton posted it at one point in time. My boat has blue trim, but I ordered both the blue and the white using the numbers from the same list and the colors matched quite well. I ordered from Gelcoat Products, but the color codes are apparently rather universal, so you could probably order from somewhere else too.

I, too have read the various points of view on gelcoat over epoxy. I do know that if you are going to do it, it's best to lean towards a resin rich mixture, and not a hardener rich one. That's because any "extra" amines in the hardener will make the gelcoat stay sticky vs. curing. I recently gelcoated over some WEST 610 epoxy and so far, so good. The 610 is pre-mixed, and my guess is that since it is super precise and controlled (since "they" do the ratio in their manufacturing facility) that it may be a bit more resin rich than a homebrewed batch.

Sunbeam



Different sources say different things about gelcoat and epoxy. According to the Gougeon Bros (West System), gelcoat can adhere to epoxy if you remove the "amine blush", which is some skin that forms on cured epoxy. Other sources say it won't hold.

Since it isn't near or below the waterline, I can't imagine it's too risky to try.[/quote]
 
I spent quit a bit of time researching the gel coat over epoxy question and am quite comfortable with applying one over the other. It seems that the lore of gel coat not bonding to epoxy is mostly due to issues of production building and repair work where time is money and it's not cost-effective to let a boat take up space in the shop/yard while epoxy thoroughly cures for several weeks before getting on with gel coating. There have apparently been all too many instances of gel coat peeling off epoxy work - even after washing off the initial amine blush. Gougeon Brothers experimented with this for some time; I've talked to their senior tech staff and they advised that it's all a matter of letting the epoxy reach a state of cure where no more amine blush will surface and then being diligent about removing all traces of it.

One gel coat supplier I talked to initially said that they don't sell gel coat for use over epoxy because of the well-known problems between them. When I told him I was planning to removed the initial amine blush, let the epoxy cure for two weeks, and do a final wash and light sanding he acknowledged that it should work; then added that nobody does that.

Bottom line is that gel coat over epoxy can work fine if you're willing to wait for chemistry to take its course.
 
I think another factor, which I mentioned above, is if you have "free amines" floating around in the cured epoxy. I'm not sure if I"m stating it correctly in chemical terminology (and this is not the same thing as amine blush, which is easily washed off with water), but basically the hardener contains amines. These amines "each" want to link up with matching molecules in the resin, and thus it cures. However, if the mix is hardener rich (or even maybe close to just right), then after the full cure, there can be left over amine molecules (again, not blush). These molecules can't ever find a mate, and they are permanently "available," and can cause the gelcoat to stay sticky over the top of them.

When I spoke with WEST, they recommended erring on the side of resin rich (not to say one should mix way off!) if planning to gelcoat, so that all the amines would be taken up in the cure (by resin molecules). I think they used to recommend a resin rich mix for making water tanks, back before they stopped endorsing that, but I think it was for a related reason (left over amine molecules which would be more toxic, IIRC).

Again, sorry for what I'm sure are some laughably wrong chemical terms; hopefully the general idea is still discernible.

Sunbeam
 
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