I've done (together with somebody else) replacement of the top glass on a
Cirrus, both wings top surfaces, due to advanced gelcoat cracking going
into the skins. Trust me: you don't want to go there.

At 15:31 08 April 2015, ND wrote:
On Wednesday, April 8, 2015 at 6:53:22 AM UTC-4, PBA wrote:
One other thing to add, I know there are some people out there flying
gla=
ss ships with pretty worn out finishes. What are your thoughts?
I've read about the gelcoat cracks continuing into the fiberglass, but
I'=
ve also read about people saying they've never seen that in a career of
ref=
inishing sailplanes.=20
The appearance and performance degradation (which seems to be minor if
no=
t at all from SeeYou analysis) of my my finish doesn't bother me, but the
i=
dea that it would impact the safety of the glider does. Nonetheless, I
feel=
if this were really an issue with safety, we would have seen a
structural
=
failure of a wing given how many sailplanes are out there with cracking
gel=
coat. To my knowledge we have not.=20
=20
One other question, where's the best place to find "white catalyst"
previ=
ously mentioned, come to think of it I don't even know what that is!

the cracks don't manifest themselves in the same way when they continue
int=
o the glass. they simply appear as faint white lines in the glass,
running
=
in the same direction as the crazing. it definitely happens, and there is
m=
ore than one way to deal with it.