We made it back to home base in Port Aransas after trouble free travels of approx 9K miles. I'm going to try and catch up on some deferred cosmetic maintenance and a significant amount of fiberglass work is involved. It would be great of someone could steer me toward brand/color of gelcoat used on my 96 Uni.
Has anyone successfully matched or near matched a stock gelcoat? (I've tried Foretravel....no dice.)
Thanks, Chuck
Chuck,
VERY unlikely that the OE gel coat would match the aged gel coat. Probably plenty of boat FG repair shops there that can do a better match. I know we have them up in the Kemah area.
Shucks. Reckon you're right. I've tried the local boat shops....rather the one that's left after the hurricane. Guess I'll take another stab at matching. That's right, give the job to the profoundly color blind guy..
Let's try this.....anyone know which way pure white is tinted, yellow, brown or other? If I wet sanded down to unoxidized gelcoat you don't think it would be (very close to) original color?
When Xtreme does the headlight and step conversions they must know something. My 20 year old gel coat looks the same as the glass they did.
Ya, like matching paint, matching gel coat is an ART.
And the Xtreme folks are world class artists.
I used to marvel how good some paint shops were in matching paint. Now they keep you out of the shop so you don't see how easy it is to match the colors, even with the paint code as part of the reading. Several different brands out there but this is a good German one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-cYLGfdscA
Pierce
Chuck, the body shop where I have had work done in the past on both autos and Foretravels as well as my current coach uses a computerized color matching program. It is all done automatically. Circumvents all human oyeball errors. I have had over the years perhaps a dozen occasions to test their accuracy and found it perfect on every vehicle. ( not all were mine). This is a huge collision center that does big tractor-trailer rigs and trucks as well as autos. They do the painted signs on the beer and soda pop trucks. See if there is such a facility in your area.l
Chuck,
A $25 HF Jitterbug is a great tool they sell. Does not use much air and it lasts too. Best to start on the oxidized side with 2500 or 3000 wet or dry with a little water on it 20 or 30 seconds. The gelcoat on the sides (at least on our U300) is rock hard so I don't like to start with anything else. Too hard to get scratches out otherwise. Anyway, the ultra fine W/D gets it nice and shiny but only after quite a bit of work. Then I use a auto body buffer at no more than 1400 RPM along with either a wool or foam pad and since the gel coat is super hard, a rubbing compound or polishing depending on what it looks like. 3M is good.
The front and rear caps on ours are much softer and clean up quickly. The down side is that they also oxidize quickly. The gelcoat seems to be a different animal entirely. I have not finished both sides but they still look like I did them yesterday.
The Jitterbug also works wonders on the headlights with a polish like "final finish" to make them look really good. They need it at least once a year as they oxidize pretty quickly. They sure pass a lot more light through when clean. We have aftermarket HIDs and they do a pretty good job lighting up the road ahead. Stock lights were terrible.
HF or ebay are good places to buy multiple sheets of different grades of W/D. I fold them into thirds and they fit the jitterbug perfectly.
Jitterbug: https://www.harborfreight.com/search?q=jitterbug%20sander
Wet or Dry paper. 3M probably lasts longer but I can't remember which on I bought last year. wet or dry sandpaper | eBay (https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1311.R1.TR2.TRC0.A0.H1.Xwet+or+dry+.TRS0&_nkw=wet+or+dry+sandpaper&_sacat=0)
or try HF paper.
Think the white is Ford Performance White but they have a couple of different numbers for the color depending on the year.
Pierce
Alright! Some great ideas here. Reading up on the spectrophotometer they apparently can get the color dead nuts on but you have to have all your tints registered in the system, along with the base. So, don't think that's going to work out, maybe if it was paint would be the way to go.
Pierce, I'm going to pick up a touch up paint pen of Ford Performance White for the year, and see if it makes a good starting point. I really appreciate your finishing tips, as it happens I have all the buffers, bonnets, 3m finishing polish etc. Seeing as where my local hdwe store sells wet-n-dry for $3.00 a sheet I'm going to check out some of the HF stuff as you suggest.
Guess its time to stop thinking and start doing. Thanks again.
Chuck,
Here is a color x-ref for Ford Performance White. You can see Ford used a couple of different PWs with M6640 the most popular. http://paintref.com/cgi-bin/colorcodedisplay.cgi?color=Performance%20White . Not sure Foretravel used all the same white either.
One side of our coach was worse than the other from constant sun exposure. Another problem on that side was when I removed the decals, the surface underneath was a few thousands higher than the oxidized surface. As hard as the surface is, it was a lost cause to try and sand the proud surface down to match the rest. I had to use two different ultra fine paper grades to get rid of the oxidized surface on the one side. Usually had the jitterbug in one hand and garden hose with a trigger in the other trading off as my arm got tired. An hour a day keeps...
Pierce
For those wishing to re-paint, here's the factory mix for white:
Mike, is this the same for later coaches or a better way to ask is did they always use the same white?
Chris
Hard to say, I'd think so. FT might have that info. I know that paint call-out I posted came from FT.