Gelcoat Repair?

[98XJSport]

Ok so I got myself a nice Scrambler with near perfect fiberglass. But today I pulled back the tarp on it to do some work and found this:



Apparently about 2:00 this morning a porcupine decided to sit in front of the scramber, which is under a black tarp. My father didn't even know it was under there, he thought it was one of the firewood piles. Thats .410 birdshot from about 15' away.

Good news is none penetrated even into the fiberglass. Overall I'm impressed wth how strong it is. But it obviously went through the gelcoat, does anyone have any tips on how to fix this one? I had eventually planned on roughing it all up after I got it running and repainting it, but I don't want to leave it like this for too long and cause further damage.

[hilhilti]

hey xj98sport,
looks like your dad needs to sharpen his aim a bit, just kidding, that too bad, I own a boat repair shop in Casco Me. Hamilton marine in Portland has small gel coat repair kits. or if you were in the area you couls stop by the shop and I would give you what you need with some instruction for a successful repair. let me know if i can help

[98XJSport]

With the amount of birdshot in the side of the scrambler I seriously wonder how he hit the porcupine at all, but he did. He heard it chewing on the house in the middle of the night.

I actually make it down your way fairly often, and will probably be in the area again next week. What's the name/location of your shop, and I'll be down to do some shopping. I like keeping my business with other forum members if I have the choice.

[ProfitOfDoom]

On the boats I had we used for a cheap fix this stuff called Marine-Tex real easy to apply and sand. It worked great on everything I used it on above or below the water line. I forget what it cost but it was like under $20.00 It worked kinda like bondo just mix the 2 parts and apply.
I also used gel coat repair stuff that I got from spectrum colors,now this was more expensive at around $60.00 but then again I was after a specific color match. But it was also easy to apply the key is the sanding and reapplying. I had a nice chunk chipped off of the keel and 3 years later after I fixed it up,looks like new.
So bottom line is you can go to a boat shop and get some marine tex "cheapest" or some actual gel coat and do it your self its not hard at all,now if you were repairing a nice sized hole then yes I would say find a pro to do it,but just for skimming over the damaged exposed fiberglass you can do that yourself and cheap.