Gel coat or paint?
 

Got a rookie question here- did the CRs come in different color gel coats or did they come in grey or black gel coat which had to be painted later? My car is white, I have some little spots on my trunk that need touched up. I *think* it is painted but had someone ask me at a show if it was gel coat or paint. Thanks in advance!

l believe that they all came in a grey gel coat..

This is what I thought as well but wanted to verify as I have had multiple people ask me if it is pant or gel coat. There are some hints on the car that make me believe it is indeed painted (spots of overspray in the engine bay) but am not too familiar with the gel coat process.

My CRII came in grey gel coat...

CR I also gray gel coat.

I've worked in the Automotive Paint Manufacturer business for over 30 years, and the last 5 years with the largest Polyester Filler and gel coat manufacturer in the US.

Gel coat finishes will get close to Automotive base coat clear coat finishes but will not achieve DOI(depth of Image) or gloss levels achieved by premium automotive finishes. There are always trade offs in each finish but you can usually spot a gel coat finish quickly from a visually "fatter" look. While there are some excellent gel coat finishers out there, today's premium automotive finishes (PPG, Akzo Nobel, Basf, Axalta, Sherwin Williams) will generally give superior results with far less efforts.

Also, the reason the bodies are gel coated is because it's the first step in the fiberglass molding process as the gel coat is sprayed into the bare mold first as a release agent and also to bury and fiberglass strands from the layup process. This process has been utilized for almost 65 years in the marine and other fiberglass production processes. The additional benefits that gel coat provides is it blocks "wicking" of solvent or water into the fiberglass fiber system since using solvent or waterborne finishes over raw fiberglass repairs or layup so will usually show "ghosting" of solvent absorption in non gel coated areas.

If repairing gel coat or spraying repair areas special care needs to be taken to select the proper gel coat since "repair gel coats" contain a wax that blocks the spray applied gel coat from absorbing oxygen during the curing process. We manufacture both production layup gel coats and also repair gel coats. I can't count how many times I'm contacted by a shops that are not using the correct system for repair.

Sorry for the extensive response, just trying to shed some light on technologies that are sometimes misunderstood.

rbgray thanks for the info!