i have a fiberglass spoiler on the bed cover of my 2002 f150. well the LED light went out on it and it needs painting anyway. well i decided that i wanted to fill in and smooth out the slot in the spoiler where the LED break light goes. i got a price from a body shop to smooth it out and paint it but they wanted like $300. so i am willing to attempt to fill the slot my self. so my question is what are the steps i would need to take to do this the right way?? the slot i want to fill is only 12 or 14 inches long, about one and a half to two inches wide and maybe a half to three quarters of an inch deep.

 

gee glass huh do you know what ground fiber glass feels like?

to do a good job you'll have to grind a rebate in the surrounding area DON'T burn thru
although i don't like the stuff the can foam can be used to over-fill the recess
remove everything that isn't a spoiler and to the same line as the recess
re patch and shape a cople layers of glass mat(non-structual) but it will do and keep it from cracking
sand sand sand
a THIN skim of putty if needed
sand the final shape
gelcoat(with wax solution added) thin is ok/better
sand ~180-240 grit remove all the gloss
paint or re-gel the finish coat

or just crap it full of putty and watch it crack which is what the 300 was gonna get ya
or fix the light

haave fun
ps can you guess what i do for a living lol glass work

 

i started working on it already cause no on responded to this till now. i prolly should have done it your way but heres how i did it. i preped the area, after preping the area i used a piece of duct tape to lay along the edge so i could get some kind of mold for the contour of the edge of the spoiler. then i filled the whole thing with kitty hair. after getting it as close to full as i could i skimmed over it with body filler then i sanded and looked for any low spots. the low spots all i did was add more body filler and sand more till i got it where i wanted it. i still got one more low spot and more sanding to do then it is ready for primer and paint. i was at my local auto paint supply place and they had dupont primers in rattle cans now. it was a bit pricy though $15 a can.

 

well not quite ready that stuff shrinks over days (actully years) but wait a couple days(week) better if it gets hot(full sun) befor you fill again or think of painting

btw spent all I MEAN ALL day grinding overhead lucky me love this business 2 weeks til it goes in the water

 

well i did all the bondo work outside in the sun and the thing has been setting in my bedroom for a couple weeks now. theres still some sanding i got to do.

BTW what are you building?? you never told me.

 

working on a 83 footer almost ready starting a 90+ footer soon

 

thats cool, what is the company you work for's name and are these race boats??

 

custom not race boats (guess if you have the money and want 1)
but the last 83 had a pair of 1450hp detriots guess at 2900 hp i should move well

and we won some mega yacht award for upto 100 foot but the last one see above is far nicer so we should do well if considered
will email/pm the comp name and web addy
ps lower taxes on the rich so they can buy a big boat and i can get a raise lol

 

lol, i am all about not payin more taxes, lol but anyway it looks like you build some really nice boats. i would love to ride in one. what i really need is one of those boats i can store my bass boat in the hull of so when i want to sish i can use my bass boat, lol.

 

well the last 83(labeled a 85) has 2 16 foot boots on the fly bridge(TOP) and a crane
and yes we do the BEST work for the most part
we have our problems too but we do everything we can do do it RIGHT
some employees/management can't seem to figure out that people come to us to have it done right and not fast

well from walking about one finished a couldn't be comfortable in it too nice
i would be worried about scratching the woodwork

ps most of the "for sale" boats are just sitting at our docks and even tho i haven't borrowed any of them we are suppose to have "company boats"

 

that would be cool to have access to one of those for like a litte weekend trip.

 

thought about singing a loan(like that works on these) and run(cruise) for the islands
up on the fly bridge island girl on either side
only problem i couldn't even afford to fill the 1500gallon tanks oh well good for thinkin about while building these things

 

lol, you would have to get another loan on one just to fill the fuel tank.