I just started removing the cracked and discoloured decals (the swirls) from my coach using a plastic razor blade and heat. Decals are coming off rather easily. After taking off the first decal I noticed small vertical cracks in the gel coat. See pic. Is this typical and if not how can this be fixed? Has anyone noticed this before? The cracks are ONLY under the decals I have removed
Common from about your year to about 2006 on some brands. It's an outgassing of the fiberglass they used back then. You can sand it down to repaint but eventually it will come back. Doesn't affect anything but looks.
And, I will speculate that the graphics were a dark color where the checking took place.
Once I removed all of mine I used Mr Clean Magic Eraser Pads, looked real nice after that. Best of luck to you.
Did you use those on the whole coach or just the decal areas?
I was ashamed of how the decals looked as they were dried out and split and wrinkled. I used a razor blade to take off the middle stripe that went all around the coach. It left a shiny strip that looked really bad. I used the Mr Clean pad on the shiny part and it removed it. Looks normal now.
I see. I prefer the shiny look and would like to shine everything else. That'll likely require wet sanding, buffing and polishing.
Our coach was chalky after a bad episode at a truck wash ( don't do it ) so I used a polishing compound on it. Wet sanding was not needed.
Came out real good. I removed a decal on the front exposing the original gel coat and after polishing it's not noticeable.
Bob
Do you recall the brand of polishing compound?
Ive used a lot of 3m 06085....perfect it. I used 3 fingers and a micro towel for small imperfections and with a variable speed buffer for larger areas such as chalky. I don't have chalky issues anymore due to new paint but I used it to buff my entire 280 when I had it. you keep the polishing pad wet and moving with light pressure and you wont hurt anything burn wise. Its gone up to 70 bucks a quart from my old supplier but I see it on line for 50 and thats where I will get my next. This product is worth having in your shop, my bass boat is jet black and the gunnels are easy to get scratches on the clear coat and it grates me to no end. With my finger tips, a micro towel and 6085 and the scratches are history short order. Good for gel coat and painted metal as well.