34 MKII Wing Keel Fairing

[Dale Stone]

Hello All,
Hope you are either sailing or soon to be. I have stripped the paint off my 2001 MKII wing keel. There are a few random dings and some on the leading edge.
There looks to be the beginnings of the infamous smile but further investigation and probing resulted with cracking of the top coat (gel coat or something very hard) which covers what looks to be soft bondo fairing/ filler that was used to fill the stub_keel interface. All the other dings have the same bondo like filler showing as well.

Anyone have a similar experience? I had planned to fix the dings with epoxy but now am considering bondo.

Thanks
Dale

[Ron Hill]

Dale : Don't use Bondo instead use West System with microbloons (thickener).

A thought

[Dale Stone]

Hi Ron,
Using west micro balloons was my initial patch thoughts too. Until I saw the bondo, not sure it is the right  choice now.

Thanks
Dale

[scgunner]

     Dale,

       Bondo was designed for automotive body repair, the problem with Bondo is over time it shrinks, West System which was designed for marine use doesn't. It's your boat you can do it the way you want but down the road those Bondo repairs will need to be repaired. If it was my boat I'd remove all Bondo fixes and redo them with West System.