Rolling on Flocoat

[garfield28]

Hey all, 

I am painting on Flocoat with a foam roller and I notice it leaves a texture like little holes and pitts and I'm just wondering If I need to sand between coats of if I can apply my coats and and sand with my orbital sander when I am happy with how many coats I have? Then I would wet sand if through the grits I guess. 

 

Any advice appreciated. 

 

Thanks 

Geoff 

[noelm]

Brush it on, a roller is useless for flow coat, there should be no need for multiple coats, just one brushed on. What are you doing, repairs?

Edited October 3, 2020 by noelm

[garfield28]

2 hours ago, noelm said:

Brush it on, a roller is useless for flow coat, there should be no need for multiple coats, just one brushed on. What are you doing, repairs?

Yeah mate I had to fix some spider cracks and also some damage to the front of the boat where I tried to drive on the trailer that isn't a drive on/off design. 

[noelm]

OK, flow coat is probably not the best for that application, but it will work, it might just take some time and care.

[garfield28]

On 10/3/2020 at 5:08 PM, noelm said:

OK, flow coat is probably not the best for that application, but it will work, it might just take some time and care.

Of not flowcoat what would you recommend? 

[noelm]

When ever I have done repairs to "gouges" I tinted the resin with pigment then just did the repair, don't know whether that's OK or not, but every time I have fooled around with flow coat, except brushing an interior, it's never been fun or a great finish. Spider cracks are an entirely different kettle of fish, short of grinding them completely out (which would take skill to repair and finish) I think they will just reappear.

[New Signing]

I've not long been through this process where i ground out about 90% of the spider cracks in my gelcoat using a dremel. The worst part is the grinding out is the easiest bit. I used a bog filler that you just buy as all the spider cracks are above waterline. From there it was a lot of sanding. I intended to re gelcoat the boat to pretty it up a bit so I sanded from gunnel rubber to chine.

I took the worst advice since D day and rolled the flow coat on. The pitting you are talking about is the orange peal affect. It is unsightly and the only way to remove it is to wait for the flowcoat to go off totally which depending on your mix and ambient temperature may take weeks. Once this is done use the finest sand paper you can get away with as using an aggressive sandpaper actually makes things worse. When sanding away the orange peal you are going to remove the shiny coating from the flow coat. As a result you are going to need to wet sand and cut and polish to gain the best looking result for your boat.

Flowcoat hates other flowcoat so if there is anywhere you have not sanded well enough the flowcoat will fail and will peal off. I know this all too well and it has caused me no end of stress. What im saying is you are best to take it back to glass if you wish to proceed with flowcoat.

When my wrap eventually fails ill be going with 2 pack paint

[noelm]

Yep, agree, unless you are a pro, using flow coat for a glossy finish will be a lot of work (I am only a home handyman, but going from my personal experience) flow coat is designed (I think) to be brushed on interior floors and sides, then "speckled" to provide a durable finish that hides imperfections, I did do a dash once with flow coat, but it took forever to finish, and it was only an area about one foot square.

[New Signing]

Flow coat is best sprayed IMO