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GEL COAT

bscott0008

bscott0008

New member
I am new to the boat world but the 88 exciter that I own has alot of dock rash and chips in the paint. I belive that someone painted the top of the boat with some thing other than gel. how hard would it be to sand it and re gel a boat for a regular hobbiest like myself.
 
Re gel coating is not as hard as you would think.

BUT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is going to be labor intensive.

It will take a lot of patience in preperation, application and sanding/buffing.

I did it for the first time just recently and lets just say I may never
take that part of the project on again. I only re gelled the bottom
between the chines. Sanding around the step and the lifting strakes
was not my idea of a good time. I maintained my patience but would be hard pressed to try it again. I would just Imron everything.

But, that is just my side of the story. Hopefully others who have done it will reflect another prospective.
 
I have a buddy that worked in a body shop that did boat repairs also. He swears to just repaint instead of gel due to the labor involved. I was going to gel my enchanter instead of paint so I looked into it, finally painting it in the end.

I will say I used this on my bottom and up to the bottom bodyline http://www.yachtpaint.com/usa/ , the VC Offshore line. It is a VERY hard paint and is very user friendly. However it has a nice shine, but not like a base coat/clear coat job
 
The local high end boat shop - uses almost exclusively ppg concept base clear and Dupont Nason single stage on engine work...

My experience is that these and some of the equivelent high solids two part urethanes work great! I just went through the process of repairing some areas on my boat with flake, gel and paint in an airbrush to fill in the fades. After it was done, I block sanded the whole thing down to the flake with 400, shot a total of 4 wet coats of ppg 2021 clear on it - two wet, let set up for 2-3 days, two more wet coats, 24 hours cure time, block / color sanded with 800, 1200, 1500, 2000, 2500 then buffed out with Meguires diamond cut 85 on a foam pad. it literally glows in the sunlight... First time I've ever done one that way. It honestly has better gloss than the garage queen dark metallic navy blue corvette it sits next to. oh, and I painted it in the garage... with a cheap harbor freight gun...

I'll post some pics once I get done laying new carpet and finish re-rigging everything.

I would do a good clean and prep work and then shot it in good base coat clear coat...
 
How well do the paints you guys are suggesting stand up to things like spilled fuel? Not that I ever intend to paint a boat, but ya' just never know.
 
Think about the clear coat on a well done auto paint job... no worries on spills. Note that I use single stage urethane paint for engine paint - it has great gloss and holds up fantastic.

high quality, high solids clear coat is some tough stuff. This is the first time i've used ppg 2021 and it's a good bit harder than I expected. after a few days it sanded like granite. Now it's rock hard and has exceptional gloss. like wet glass.

the original flake job underneath looks amazing. HOK polyester flake matches the original checkmate flake to a T. Note that I used gel paste to fix the bigger scrapes and dings, mixed some amount of flake in depending on where it was, then after it cured and was sanded outmatched the fade where needed with an airbrush and basecoat paint mixed with intercoat clear. then when everything was done I wanted, did final prep and shot clear on the whole thing. lot of work, but a good learning experience.
 
wca_tim said:
The local high end boat shop - uses almost exclusively ppg concept base clear and Dupont Nason single stage on engine work...
QUOTE]

About how much paint did it take to repaint the boat? I am looking at repainting mine to match my new Checkmate interior (they could not match the original colors so they did the best they could. Awesome job, just wrong colors). I have a 20' Senator and plan on overall white, with a lot of Medium Blue and Gray triming and stripes.

I do have a medium amount of expierance painting cars...
Click to expand...
 
I did 4 wet coats of 2021 with some to spare using a gallon kit. a gallon goes a long ways (that's a gallon of high solids resin, then some reducer and hardener). Instructions were to do 2 wet coats, BUT I wanted to block / color sand AND wanted a thiclk coat of paint. I didd two wet, waited a few days, roughed it up and then two more wet coats... I also used some intercoat clear and some black base coat to touch up a few areas. not cheap, but the gloss is outstanding...
 
btrbill said:
wca_tim said:
The local high end boat shop - uses almost exclusively ppg concept base clear and Dupont Nason single stage on engine work...
QUOTE]

About how much paint did it take to repaint the boat? I am looking at repainting mine to match my new Checkmate interior (they could not match the original colors so they did the best they could. Awesome job, just wrong colors). I have a 20' Senator and plan on overall white, with a lot of Medium Blue and Gray triming and stripes.

I do have a medium amount of expierance painting cars...
Click to expand...

My Starflite used 1-1/2 gallons of paint to do the sides(w/transom) and the entire deck. I also used 3/4 gallon of white epoxy primer. Total cost for the paint was just under $650.00 with the primer included. Wet/dry sandpaper was approx $ 40.00. Regular open coat sand paper was $125.00. Gel coat for the bottom (White) used 1-1/4 gallons (bought 2 gal at $ 82.00). Special 6" dia sanding disks for the random orbit sander to sand the gel coat $ 145.00 (worked GREAT). Used 4 gallons of acetone ($ 64.00) for cleaning. Oh, almost forgot Klean Prep 1 gallon can at $ 50.00 (I got ripped by the only supplier that had it in stock).
It was a good thing I didn't calculate the total before I started, cause I may not have done the job. It would have been cheaper to get drunk!!!
Click to expand...
 
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