Fixing Minor Gelocoat dings isn't that bad
to do and doesn't require a lot of skill. Once you do it a time or two it gets easier and you will become better. There is a kit you can get at most marine supply shops or maybe even on the net. You want to rough up the ding with something like a dremmel tool and make the hole slightly abraded, (there are directions in the kit). Next you mix some of the color in a two part mix and blend it well and fill in the ding/hole and then smooth it and leave it slightly above the surface. Put some wax paper on top and make it all nice and smooth and let it cure according to the directions. After the gel coat repair is cured, you peel the paper off, get some wet sanding paper and start with a low more coarse grit and work you way up wet sanding it. I went up as high as 2000 grit. Next I borrowed a friend's buffer that he uses for autobody finish repair work and got several grades of cutting and polishing compounds and worked the spot and eventually went to wax and was happy. It passed the 5 foot rule, that is " If you can't see it from 5 foot away, you didn't do a bad job." The biggest problem you will have will be to get the color blended to a near perfect match, which I found to be difficult. For the hair line cracks, I have been told you can do those by just mixing the gel compounds and not putting the color in it and just working the material into the crack and smoothing it out. Then go through the wet sand process and buffing polishing portion. The good thing about it, is that if after you are done and some time goes by and if you aren't pleased with the visible portion, you can go back and do it over until you are satisfied. This has worked for me and I have been satisfied and I am a perfectionist, so you should do just fine and get the coat sealed up and keep the water out. There have been lots of discussions about the refinishing of the oxidied portion here, maybe do some archive searches or look around over the last couple days or weeks, there has been a fair amount of discussion recently about it and the various products that folks here have used, and like and dislike. Good luck.
