New to me 72 Skier

Looks great!

That looks fantastic!  

Donald, as you know, if you come sand I provide beer and meals all day!

God Bless your lovely wife Ridgely. 

Started acetoning the boat and sanded the transom with 320 as recommended by the glass shop who sprayed. I used a light mist of black spray paint on the transom before I sanded to see where I was going and to see that I got any orange peel flat. Question: what is the actual product/process called when you color the gel before sanding? Thanks!

samudj01 wrote: This gel is not cracked. The gel is good. Just had color issues. That said I hear you on getting more aggressive. Thanks.

Post aggression there will likely then be the need for body filler, and primer before the reapplication of gel - then some wet sanding to flatten the gel.   You could chose to paint from here - it wouldn't be gel but if the gel is in good shape and will be a good substrate a high quality self leveling paint involves a whole lot less work.   - just an option

No compression news. Sorry to disappoint

samudj01 wrote: This project is all over the place. We sanded a lot more on the gel. Used DA sanders with 80grit. We still aren’t getting through this gel. The paper could suck. Making lots of dust but not getting to glass. 36 grit? Will buy 3m this time.   Is there special sand paper? Are we using the wrong tool. Frustrating to say the least. On another boat (junk) we sanded through the gel with 150. This is much thicker. Any advice is welcome. In other news we got title to the trailer and are planning to have it sandblasted and painted. Will go under the tique for now. Anyone looking for an old #2 trailer? It is our tique trailer. Was wrecked and tongue modified a bit but it runs true. If any interest we can talk off line.

Not for nothing but thats why I figured that gel should be restored... in cases where the gel is cracked so badly it all has to go sand paper on a da has never worked for me... belt Sanders and flap disks on grinders followed by a lot of work to get it back flat after is what I have had to do...

This project is all over the place. We sanded a lot more on the gel. Used DA sanders with 80grit. We still aren’t getting through this gel. The paper could suck. Making lots of dust but not getting to glass. 36 grit? Will buy 3m this time.   Is there special sand paper? Are we using the wrong tool. Frustrating to say the least. On another boat (junk) we sanded through the gel with 150. This is much thicker. Any advice is welcome.

In other news we got title to the trailer and are planning to have it sandblasted and painted. Will go under the tique for now. Anyone looking for an old #2 trailer? It is our tique trailer. Was wrecked and tongue modified a bit but it runs true. If any interest we can talk off line.

Will the spoonful of oil in the spk plg hole not mess up the compression tester? Or do you put it in crank a bit to blow out the excess and then hook up the tester? Assume any oil is fine? We have 15w50 on hand I am sure.

Wet Compression test would involve adding a teaspoon of oil in the spark plug hole and doing a re test. The oil will seal up bad rings and give higher compression with a wet test. If your issue is bad valves the oil does not help and compression will remain mostly the same.
An engine that has sat for long periods will have some rust on the cylinder wall and even on the valve stems. If your wet test takes your cylinder with 55 PSI and it jumps to 100 PSI you know the rings are leaking badly.
I would hold off on a compression test till you run it for a while and let the rings clean up the cylinder walls and the valves pound on the seats and hopefully seat for you, sometimes the compression will jump back up if you are really lucky. As is you have two weak cylinders that need to get better or be repaired. A leak down test could help determine if the rings and valves are good. It will even show if you have an exhaust valve or intake valve issue but for now the wet test will help see what you have.
Was this a good engine when it was parked?

Next step is to re-perform wet and see if 2 and 6 come up appreciably.

The idea is to try and discern between valve sealing issues and blow by on the rings.

Valve issues can be solved with a head recondition vs bottom end rebuild.

Grabbed the Airtex pump as it was on sale for ~$40. Will give it a shot. Put it on the engine and she fired up. Didnt get to run for long bc no water but it sounded decent for the short run on the stand. Still leaking oil out of those two back holes. Looking like we will have to get a new rear main seal...sound right?

Duane in Indy - we have not sanded anything close to the amount you removed. I'd be curious to know what tools and what grit level you used to sand that deeply? We will be spraying with a G100 gel coat gun. I sprayed some test panels from a junk boat, and they turned out very nice. The real challenge will be even coverage and working in small batches of gel.

Gary S - I've read briefly about the dura tech hi gloss additive, but have not tried it. It looks like it thins things out significantly.

Our next step is to find someone who will let us use their paint booth. We may have found one in Denton, NC and may know tomorrow if it will work out.

For clarity: I am by no means a gel coat expert here. Kind of a "jump in the lake and learn to swim later" type guy. Gel coat repair people earn every cent of the fee.
You also need a gun with large enough nozzle to spray this stuff. Orange peel is inevitable. And don't try to thin the gel down much or it will loose its integrity.