Interior Hull/Cabin Liner Gel Coat Repair

[SVCarolena]

The PO of my Pearson 303 had a small fire in the galley which caused cracks in the gel coat of the fiberglass cabin liner in the area over the galley. The entire liner is fiberglass, including the overhead. The glass beneath the gel coat looks to be ok. Since this is basically an asthetic problem, not structural, and is not affected by UV rays, my current repair idea is to sand down the affected area then fill and fair with a plastic filler like Bondo. Then I plan to paint the entire interior liner (the color of which I don't like, anyway) with a one part poly - probably off white to brighten the cabin a bit. Because the liner gel coat is textured, and I don't think there is any simple way to recreate the texture in the affected area, I also plan to mask off the area around the galley and fair all of it (damaged or not) smooth - I'm going to try and creat a border that would appear to follow a natural line where the galley gives way to the settee. Any thoughts on my plan? Any suggestions on using automotive Bondo as my filler of choice?

[sailingdog]

I don't see any real problems with using Bondo as your filler. Photos would help...but you can't post them until you have ten posts anyways...

BTW, if you want to post photos, get a www.photobucket.com or www.flickr.com account and put them there...and then use the icon to link to the photos.

[SVCarolena]

Here is a picture from the survey. I've already begun clean-up and restoration, but not to the gel coat above the stove.

[SVCarolena]

Surprised that worked - I guess you don't need 10 posts before you can upload pictures.

[sailingdog]

Nah, uploading photos doesn't require 10 posts... posting a link does... I'm actually surprised that you got the photo to upload... most people have a lot of trouble getting sailnet to accept photos, so usually end up doing what I said earlier.