Fiberglass Shower Pan

[wheelerimage]

I have surface cracks in my fiberglass shower pan on my 65 Globetrotter. It was treated with new gelcoat 2 years ago. It looked great and I thought that the problem was fixed. I use my shower alot in the summer and after 2 years, the surface cracks have reappeared.

2 Questions:

Question 1: Is this just a cosmetic flaw? Or should I worry about it getting worse?

Question 2: What is the best solution for repair? One Airforum post reccommended Bondo Glass as a fix. I also saw a post that raved about Devcon Seal-N-Place from ITW Performance Polymers.

[easyride]

May be stress cracks,and have no functional defects.I think I would reline with fiberglass cloth and then a new gelcoat. Dave

[samb]

Polyester resin is much more brittle than epoxy resin. Which did you use? I refinished my fiberglass shower pan in my '61 Safari with epoxy resin and white pigment 4 years ago and it still looks good as new. I used resin only, no glass cloth. The surface cracks have not reappeared. The trailer interior has been through temperatures of below zero to over 100 degrees since the repair.
Sam

[wheelerimage]

Thanks guys! The gelcoat was done by a "professional." The vintage trailer repair place hired someone to do it. They are out of business now, so I don't know what they used. I purchased some West system epoxy so maybe I'll just do it myself.

As they say, the Titanic was built by professionals, but the Ark was built by amateurs.

[ventport]

I re did my 64 Avion shower pan. It was full of cracks. What I found was that the pink gel coat was put on way too thick and cracked when the pan flexed over the years. I ground off most of the gel coat some of which was close to 1/4 inch thick, and gave it a new layer of fiber glass cloth on the inside and a new thinner layer of gel coat. Then some white Interlux two part epoxy marine paint. It now looks like new and will not crack like the old one did.

[boatdoc]

Originally Posted by wheelerimage

I have surface cracks in my fiberglass shower pan on my 65 Globetrotter. It was treated with new gel coat 2 years ago. It looked great and I thought that the problem was fixed. I use my shower alot in the summer and after 2 years, the surface cracks have reappeared.

2 Questions:

Question 1: Is this just a cosmetic flaw? Or should I worry about it getting worse?

Question 2: What is the best solution for repair? One Airforum post reccommended Bondo Glass as a fix. I also saw a post that raved about Devcon Seal-N-Place from ITW Performance Polymers.

Hi wheelerimage;
Stress cracks in fiberglass can appear for two reasons, one is stress from flexing and the other when gel coat is too thick. Sure way to repair it is to sand gel coat off to where you can begin to see fiberglass. Using light weight glass cloth and epoxy resin re coat entire pan. When it sets up sand the surface with 150 grit and finish with 220. Spray only egg shell thickens worth of a gel coat, being sure not to over apply in corners. Last and very important is proper solid support for the pan. Devcon is not suitable for gel coat "only" repairs. Devcon is for plastics. Thanks, "Boatdoc"