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Gelcoat Cracks

JCat
Explorer III
Explorer III
My friend who is not a memeber of the forum asked me to post this for him.

He has a 11 yer old class A, good brand(I don't want to talk bad about the brand) who is still in business, and he has these small cracks in the gelcoat, mostly where the darker colors are located.

The cracks are about 1/8 inch and can only be seen when u are close up to the RV.

He has talked to 2 repair places in CA and one said that the fiberglass was not fully cured whaen the paint was applied and out gassing occured as it cured and this caused the paint to crack which caused the gelcoat to crack.

Another paint place said the manufacturer of the RV used cheap fiberglass and that it has cracked and caused the paint to crack.

One estimate was $22K to grind off the gelcoat, repair the bad fiberglass, repaint and reclear the RV.

Seems like a lot of money and it seems like the manufacturer should be paying since they screwed it up either way.

Anyone seen this and if yes how was it fxed and at what cost ?
JCat & PCat
2004 Mandalay 40D
CAT C7 350 HP
21 REPLIES 21

Snomas
Explorer
Explorer
My Dutchstar has small cracks in the dark paint colors. I talked to a RV repair shop and they said that is often the case in the dark colors of many MH's they see in their shop. Why fix something that will occur over again is my thoughts. You can only see them if you get very close.
2006 WINNEBAGO ASPECT 29H Ford E450 Super Duty
2018 F150 Lariat Crew Cab, Coyote 5.0 L RWD

FIRE_UP
Explorer
Explorer
JCat wrote:
Thanks scott excellent write up, you hit it right on the head.
The cracks or crazing as you define them seem smaller than the ones on your pic, but its hard to be sure as there is no scale in the pic.

I called a lot of paint companies and fiberglass manufacurers today and it is the fiberglass that is cracked, thru the full body paint, and into the clear coat.

So you either grind it down, patch the cracks you can see, wait for more to pop up over time, or replace the entire sidewalls with new fiberglass.

Both options are not cheap.

JCat,
You're certainly welcome Sir. This is an extremely bad situation for many RV owners out there. The amount of money it takes to correct it is astronomical. 99.99% of the owners simply will not do it. And, once it starts, it's like a disease, there's no stopping it.
Scott
Scott and Karla
SDFD RETIRED
2004 Itasca Horizon, 36GD Slate Blue 330 CAT
2011 GMC Sierra 1500 Ext Cab 4x4 Toad
2008 Caliente Red LVL II GL 1800 Goldwing
KI60ND

JCat
Explorer III
Explorer III
Thanks scott excellent write up, you hit it right on the head.
The cracks or crazing as you define them seem smaller than the ones on your pic, but its hard to be sure as there is no scale in the pic.

I called a lot of paint companies and fiberglass manufacurers today and it is the fiberglass that is cracked, thru the full body paint, and into the clear coat.

So you either grind it down, patch the cracks you can see, wait for more to pop up over time, or replace the entire sidewalls with new fiberglass.

Both options are not cheap.
JCat & PCat
2004 Mandalay 40D
CAT C7 350 HP

prism
Explorer
Explorer
Fire up Any and all (many) lite colured MH,s do not have the cracking its nothing to do with brand That I have ever seen,yours if it was black or similar dark colour would have lots of cracks just like a hundred others by this time in its life most likely.Monaco and Holiday were real bad in 04 through 07 or so

FIRE_UP
Explorer
Explorer
JCat wrote:
My friend who is not a memeber of the forum asked me to post this for him.

He has a 11 yer old class A, good brand(I don't want to talk bad about the brand) who is still in business, and he has these small cracks in the gelcoat, mostly where the darker colors are located.

The cracks are about 1/8 inch and can only be seen when u are close up to the RV.

He has talked to 2 repair places in CA and one said that the fiberglass was not fully cured whaen the paint was applied and out gassing occured as it cured and this caused the paint to crack which caused the gelcoat to crack.

Another paint place said the manufacturer of the RV used cheap fiberglass and that it has cracked and caused the paint to crack.

One estimate was $22K to grind off the gelcoat, repair the bad fiberglass, repaint and reclear the RV.

Seems like a lot of money and it seems like the manufacturer should be paying since they screwed it up either way.

Anyone seen this and if yes how was it fxed and at what cost ?



JCat,
If I'm not mistaken, in the picture below, is what you're talking about. Many have referred to it as "Crazing" in the fiberglass. And, you don't have to be "bashful" about naming the manufacture of the coach in question. That picture represents one side of an '07 Country Coach. And, I might add, the ENTIRE coach looked like that, not just the darker schemes. And, that "crazing", if that's what the real technical term actually is, is common on many brands/models.

When the wife and I were looking for a coach, about a little over two years ago, I learned all about it real quick. We looked at several years of Itasca Meridians that had it. We looked at Monacos that had it. Two of the three Country Coaches, had it. And yes, in many, it is more it is more prevalent on the darker colors of a "Full Body Paint unit". It's out there, way more than people care to admit.

Now, in the research I did, I found out that some of the crazing actually happened DURING the warranty period. When that happened, for the most part, the unit was taken back to the factory and, the coach was literally stripped of all the walls and re walled, with new and better fiberglass sheets. You see, according to the experts, that crazing is in the fiberglass, not the paint.

Folks have paid almost what your buddy was quoted, to have a complete sand down, so called sealer, and re-paint, only to have the exact same condition re-appear, within two years, looking almost exactly like it did before the repaint. It didn't take long for that kind of news to travel the industry.

Folks that have it, unfortunately, have no recourse in the correction unless they feel like spending the money to do what the factory does and that's a complete re-skin. Talk about some serious money.

Now, I don't know about other manufactures but, Winne and Itasca started the option of "Full body Paint" around '03, plus or minus. And YES, it is PAINT, NOT GELCOAT.

If any of you ever watched the program "Ultimate Factories", you'd have seen the Winnebago Vectra built, almost from the first nut and bolt, to the point of drive out of the factory exit. And, that was with a full body paint job. Talk about a serious, painstaking, tedious job, full body paint has multiple steps involved.

And, so, to have the fiberglass, under the paint, do this to your nice, "High cost" option of full body paint, was to say the least, a bit disheartening. Again, if you were one of the "lucky" ones (if you could call that luck, to have your coach do that to you after what you paid for it)and, it was still under warranty, then you got it repaired.

But, basically unless you're very well off, and, really, REALLY like the coach and crazing is present and, you want the job done right and permanently, to afford the factory fix, you're going to have to live with it. And, there's many, many out there, of may brands and models, that have it. Once that coach is out of warranty, the manufacturer is out of the picture.

We just kept looking for the make/model/year full body paint, that simply did not have it. Our coach, an '04 Itasca Horizon, has only a tiny, amount of it, on the front roof cap, in a crevasse, that's about 6" long. Other than that, it's free of it.

We almost made a couple of 1000 mile trips to look at coaches. But, some phone calls to the dealers and, I told them to go out and physically look close at the ones they had in the ads. I told them about the crazing and I did NOT WANT ANYTHING that even looked like it. Well, they called back and said yep, it's there. So, that saved me and the wife a lot of aggravation of a long drive and expense for nothing.

So, sorry for the long rant/novel but, in my opinion, for what ever it's worth, the condition of "Crazing" was not being described accurately. To many, while being unsightly, it means very little. Besides, what are ya gonna do?
Scott

Scott and Karla
SDFD RETIRED
2004 Itasca Horizon, 36GD Slate Blue 330 CAT
2011 GMC Sierra 1500 Ext Cab 4x4 Toad
2008 Caliente Red LVL II GL 1800 Goldwing
KI60ND

prism
Explorer
Explorer
Terryallan wrote:
prism wrote:
Terryallan wrote:
Unless things have really changed. The "Paint" IS the gelcoat. Gelcoat is a color. It is the color of your RV. Usually with clear on it. And in my experience. The mold is gelcoated, and then the fiberglass is worked onto it. Fiberglass comes out of the mold "painted" the color its going to remain. It comes out waxed as well. That how they keep the gelcoat from sticking to the mold.

In other words. You want a blue fiberglass RV. You spray blue Gelcoat in the mold, and glass to it.

As for the Gelcoat cracking. It will often get spider webbed. But it is highly unlikely the glass itself cracked. It is still water tight.

Thats Not what we are discussing here at all.Diesel pushers are full body PAINT with clear coating.Colour is NOT in the fibre glass on these units.It,s paint over gelcoat and then clear coated and these ar not spider cracking situations


What color is the gelcoat. Gel coat is NOT part of the glass. It is what the glass is attached to. Why would it have gel coat, if it was not colored?


I assume its white? if your going to paint different colours over it I assume its a base white? sure as heck not black that I know but not a expert on gel coat other than know what it is.In fact I dont know if they use gelcoat on these units or just paint the fibreglass?I assumed it was coated with a base white gel coat and then painted?

Terryallan
Explorer II
Explorer II
prism wrote:
Terryallan wrote:
Unless things have really changed. The "Paint" IS the gelcoat. Gelcoat is a color. It is the color of your RV. Usually with clear on it. And in my experience. The mold is gelcoated, and then the fiberglass is worked onto it. Fiberglass comes out of the mold "painted" the color its going to remain. It comes out waxed as well. That how they keep the gelcoat from sticking to the mold.

In other words. You want a blue fiberglass RV. You spray blue Gelcoat in the mold, and glass to it.

As for the Gelcoat cracking. It will often get spider webbed. But it is highly unlikely the glass itself cracked. It is still water tight.

Thats Not what we are discussing here at all.Diesel pushers are full body PAINT with clear coating.Colour is NOT in the fibre glass on these units.It,s paint over gelcoat and then clear coated and these ar not spider cracking situations


What color is the gelcoat. Gel coat is NOT part of the glass. It is what the glass is attached to. If it isn't colored. there is no need for it. Why would it have gel coat, if it was not colored? They could just paint the fiberglass. As I say, Things may have changed a bunch since I did glass.
Terry & Shay
Coachman Apex 288BH.
2013 F150 XLT Off Road
5.0, 3.73
Lazy Campers

Passin_Thru
Explorer
Explorer
We actually use Mold Release to keep it from sticking to the Mold. Gelcoat is called Gelcoat because it is Gelcoat, not part of the Fiberglas and you mix whatever color you want into it and apply. We place a mold, put on Resin, then we dip the fiberglas in resin adn put the sheets on the mold. We then roll it and squeege all the air out and dry it in an oven. Then we put 3 coats of white filler on it sanding each one with finer sandpaper. Finally we Gelcoat it with a coat of colored gelcoat and then a coat of clear. Works well on RVs and boats. http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=clothed+ladies.com&ei=utf-8&fr=ie8

prism
Explorer
Explorer
wny_pat wrote:
prism wrote:
Terryallan wrote:
Unless things have really changed. The "Paint" IS the gelcoat. Gelcoat is a color. It is the color of your RV. Usually with clear on it. And in my experience. The mold is gelcoated, and then the fiberglass is worked onto it. Fiberglass comes out of the mold "painted" the color its going to remain. It comes out waxed as well. That how they keep the gelcoat from sticking to the mold.

In other words. You want a blue fiberglass RV. You spray blue Gelcoat in the mold, and glass to it.

As for the Gelcoat cracking. It will often get spider webbed. But it is highly unlikely the glass itself cracked. It is still water tight.

Thats Not what we are discussing here at all. Diesel pushers are full body PAINT with clear coating.Colour is NOT in the fibre glass on these units.It,s paint over gelcoat and then clear coated and these ar not spider cracking situations
My Diesel Pusher is not full body Paint. Many brands of the later model diesel pushers do have full body paint, but not all of them. In fact, til a couple years back most were still gelcoat, even the highlines like Foretravel. In fact, the OP was talking about a 11 year old Class A which most likely was gelcoat. I think Tiffin was one of the first to go with Full Body Paint, and not all that long ago.


your unit is very old.Iam talking about the last 10 years or so
Not that long ago??My 2002 Allegro bus was Full body paint.SO IN FACT way more than 2 years back they were full body paint.The cracking that I assume the OP is refering to is the same cracking iam refering to also.Its prevalent in Dark colours.Fact is Most all Diesel pushers in the level iam refering to are all full body paint and have been for a lOT LOT more than two years.My 2008 is full body paint My friends 2006 Holiday Rambler is full body paint.I may be wrong in the cracking to which we are refering to and what the Op was talking about but it sounds like the same thing to me.based on this statement

:one said that the fiberglass was not fully cured whaen the paint was applied and out gassing occured as it cured and this caused the paint to crack which caused the gelcoat to crack.

wny_pat1
Explorer
Explorer
prism wrote:
Terryallan wrote:
Unless things have really changed. The "Paint" IS the gelcoat. Gelcoat is a color. It is the color of your RV. Usually with clear on it. And in my experience. The mold is gelcoated, and then the fiberglass is worked onto it. Fiberglass comes out of the mold "painted" the color its going to remain. It comes out waxed as well. That how they keep the gelcoat from sticking to the mold.

In other words. You want a blue fiberglass RV. You spray blue Gelcoat in the mold, and glass to it.

As for the Gelcoat cracking. It will often get spider webbed. But it is highly unlikely the glass itself cracked. It is still water tight.

Thats Not what we are discussing here at all. Diesel pushers are full body PAINT with clear coating.Colour is NOT in the fibre glass on these units.It,s paint over gelcoat and then clear coated and these ar not spider cracking situations
My Diesel Pusher is not full body Paint. Many brands of the later model diesel pushers do have full body paint, but not all of them. In fact, til a couple years back most were still gelcoat, even the highlines like Foretravel. In fact, the OP was talking about a 11 year old Class A which most likely was gelcoat. I think Tiffin was one of the first to go with Full Body Paint, and not all that long ago.
โ€œAll journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.โ€

prism
Explorer
Explorer
Terryallan wrote:
Unless things have really changed. The "Paint" IS the gelcoat. Gelcoat is a color. It is the color of your RV. Usually with clear on it. And in my experience. The mold is gelcoated, and then the fiberglass is worked onto it. Fiberglass comes out of the mold "painted" the color its going to remain. It comes out waxed as well. That how they keep the gelcoat from sticking to the mold.

In other words. You want a blue fiberglass RV. You spray blue Gelcoat in the mold, and glass to it.

As for the Gelcoat cracking. It will often get spider webbed. But it is highly unlikely the glass itself cracked. It is still water tight.

Thats Not what we are discussing here at all.Diesel pushers are full body PAINT with clear coating.Colour is NOT in the fibre glass on these units.It,s paint over gelcoat and then clear coated and these ar not spider cracking situations

ScottG
Nomad
Nomad
The gel coat on the front of my TT went bad and needed repainting. It never occurred to me to try and get money out of the manufacturer after 8 years - much less 11.

Terryallan
Explorer II
Explorer II
Unless things have really changed. The "Paint" IS the gelcoat. Gelcoat is a color. It is the color of your RV. Usually with clear on it. And in my experience. The mold is gelcoated, and then the fiberglass is worked onto it. Fiberglass comes out of the mold "painted" the color its going to remain. It comes out waxed as well. That how they keep the gelcoat from sticking to the mold.

In other words. You want a blue fiberglass RV. You spray blue Gelcoat in the mold, and glass to it.

As for the Gelcoat cracking. It will often get spider webbed. But it is highly unlikely the glass itself cracked. It is still water tight.
Terry & Shay
Coachman Apex 288BH.
2013 F150 XLT Off Road
5.0, 3.73
Lazy Campers

timmac
Explorer
Explorer
JCat wrote:


One estimate was $22K to grind off the gelcoat, repair the bad fiberglass, repaint and reclear the RV.
?


If he really loves his RV than take it down south of the border, there you can have it repaired and repainted for less than $6000.00 in most cases.