Preparing for repaint...what do I do with these cracks? PICS

I am going to slowly be fixing up my Hobie to get it ready for a new paint job or possibly a new gelcoat. I have a bunch of these little cracks everywhere and I was wondering what is the best way to fix them? Do I just grind them out with my dremel and fill with west system epoxy?

Keven,
Some of those cracks, especially the circular ones, look like compression fractures. Before you paint, make certain you do not have any delamination going on your top deck. If you have cracking like that, I wouldn't be suprised if you have a bit of delamination.
I would suggest filling the cracks with a liquid epoxy and then sanding afterwards. The problem with opening up the cracks with a Dremel is that it will take forever and it doesn't really accomplish anything.
One big issue with the top deck is that any filler or any sanding, is going to reduce the traction pattern. I had some delamination on the top deck on my 1980 H16 and after correcting it with liquid epoxy, all of the traction pattern was filled in. I ended up using a product called Interdeck from Interlux to put traction back on the deck. Basically, it is a polyurathane paint with sand particles mixed in. The stuff worked great and the boat looks fine without the hash mark pattern. I taped the deck and painted 2 coats on. It is going on year 2 and it looks as good as when I first applied it.

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Eric Weller
2006 F18 Capricorn
1980 H16
Keep the pointy side up!

Thick gel coat is brittle and relies on a solid substrate to support it. If you really want to fix the cracking you'll have to grind out the crack with a dremel tool or DA and repair the glass substrate, then re gel coat the repair. Use polyester (what the boat was made out of), there's no need to pay the extra expense (Double+) to use epoxy as a filler.

Hope that helps.

For help with gel:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0fO8TVEtoQ[/youtube]

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Sail Revolution
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