Automotive Paint Over/On Top Of Gel Coat

[TRBenj]

This is a big project- kudos to you for taking it on. Boat looks worlds better with the paint off! I cant believe people paint over gel... drives me nuts.

Like was said, anyplace that has cracks telegraphing through the old paint (or filler) will need to be ground out and repaired with glass, else the damage will telegraph through the new gel when youre done. Looks like a fair amount of bondo on the deck- hopefully just filling in shallow scratches. While it will be labor intensive to get this done, it wont take a lot of fine skills- so keep trudging. Matching the color for the spot gel repair will likely be the hardest part.

Sanding sucks, but when youre done you'll have the best possible finish. For those of us with a bit more time than $$, some sweat equity will go a long ways on a project boat! I wouldnt have considered a wrap or a repaint, FWIW... keep up the good work!

Id pull off the windshield and all other hardware, btw... the few minutes it takes to remove and reinstall later will be well worth the time and aggravation saved by not having to work around them. Both with the sandpaper and the wheel.

Oh, and no need to go all the way to 1500+ grit on the paper when you get to that point... if you use an aggressive enough compound and a proper pad, only 1000-1200 grit may be necessary. Using a tracer at each step is a good idea so that you only sand as much as you need to on each round.

[College Kid]

OK Boys, I was supposed to go back to work today, but called it a half day as I just wanted to get back to work on the boat......I love that I get to work from home.

I am super excited about the progress and hopefully I can finish strong.... I still have along way to go, and unfortunately it is all the little fiddly places that the sander won't get into.

Once i had finished off as much as I could with the sander I cleaned up (there is still dust everywhere) and wiped down the boat with water. I was even able to work a bit with door open today!!!!!! only -3C outside......lol

After wiping the boat down i got a little giddy and decided to polish and wax a small part of the bow...................look at that SHINE!!!!!!!!

Sorry for all the pictures, I got a little carried away.

[College Kid]

Opps forgot to attach them.....

[College Kid]

that final pic is the outside of the port side repair.

TRBenj, thanks for comments, I feel the same way about people who paint gel coats. just don't understand it. what are tracers? I've never heard that term.

[bsloop]

I think you will contiue to find more problem areas that will continue to plague this project and be a huge waste of time and $$$.

The boat season is too short Canada to waste this much time. You said you took it on trade, I would have fixed enough of any major problem areas and sold it to someone with less OCD. Its a 20 yr old boat, use it.
Canada is a big place, a better descriptor in your profile would help but I would look for someone up there or plan a spring trip south to have someone in the States wrap it. Maybe even two trips, one to play then drop off at the location, wait a month to let them get the work done and cure then go back, pick it up and play again?

I think Kyle has had good advice all along and been patient but really, STOP and wrap it.
Best of luck.....

[TRBenj]

$3-7k for a wrap, which would have been nothing more than a vinyl cover over the existing paint and damage? Yikes, thats some *interesting* advice. If looked at from a financial perspective, then doing nothing at all probably would have been the most straightforward way to go. Use the boat as-is or sell it as-is if you want something cherry... but he's knee deep in the project and its looking great. Full steam ahead I say!

While there will be minimal payback on the labor (you'd probably come out ahead if you worked the same number of hours at a minimum wage job, vs. the amount your boat will appreciate with the work youre doing to it), you'll absolutely come out ahead on the money invested in the tools and materials used to restore the gelcoat. $500 worth of fiberglass/gel, sandpaper and buffing supplies will go a looooong way. Thats a pretty decent ROI in terms of hobbyist projects... most restoration efforts come out way upside down on the materials alone. Then of course, theres the personal satisfaction of bringing a boat back from the dead. Hard to put a dollar figure on that.

A "tracer" is what Kyle was describing a ways back. Some spray paint thinned out and spread around will be a visual indicator on when to stop sanding each round. When its gone, it means youve removed all the scratches left from the previous grit, and can move to the next one.

[MIskier]

Project seems to be coming along very well! As others have said surface prep will be crucial to having a great looking finish. I do disagree with using epoxy with your fiberglass repairs though, this is especially crucial in any area that will have exposed repaired glass getting gel coated.

The whole boat was built using Vinyl-Ester resin so you will not be gaining any meaningful mechanical properties, and epoxy resin will require more prep work before being able to gel over it since the two do not adhere well because of their chemical composition.

MC did go to using AME 5000 and poly light resin at some point, as current boats are built using that resin system. Although I cant track down the date when they switched.

[mikeg205]

Originally Posted by MIskier

Project seems to be coming along very well! As others have said surface prep will be crucial to having a great looking finish. I do disagree with using epoxy with your fiberglass repairs though, this is especially crucial in any area that will have exposed repaired glass getting gel coated.

The whole boat was built using Vinyl-Ester resin so you will not be gaining any meaningful mechanical properties, and epoxy resin will require more prep work before being able to gel over it since the two do not adhere well because of their chemical composition.

Really - vinyl-ester?... then I need to bust my buddy who claimed to sell resin to MC many years ago. My bad - I assume based on the strength and longevity of some the MC's epoxy resin was used.

It's a project boat - keep going...I say.

[Kyle]

College

It's looking good.

I would remove windshield and the cover snaps on the sides. It will eventually save lots of time.


I am not totally on board with re gelling the boat. I'm looking at this as a total out of pocket expense now. The amount of time put in will save tons of labor hours if you decide to paint it.

1) Removing bondo, re filling, glassing bad areas, and re gel (praying it matches, most cases it won't be exact perfect) will have a cost.

2) Prepping for paint you can do all in that shop of yours. More than likely it will just require elbow grease and sanding. Then cost of paint.

3) The wrap. This is where you pick a wrap and hope someone else who may want to buy the boat likes your taste and the ole 3k+ part.


Here is my thought process.

Sand and get it perfect and prepped for paint. Say you can get it painted for 1k. Say you re-gel and spend $500 to $1k hopefully the colors blend well. One way may cost more but the colors will be all the same color, not spotty from a gel that didnt match perfectly. Blending is hard, there is 100's of shades of white, pink, grey, and blue. The white is the easy color (glacier white) the blue is not made any more, neither is the grey and pink. That means a lot of trial and error could go on trying to match. The other may be a few $100 less but the risk of going from knee deep to waist deep is there. I say that because who knows the damage under the filler.


What if you sell the tower and fill in the holes from the tower. Then spend the cash on the boat, that way this project is not costing your cash.

Not going into tower vs no tower but you do have damage by the tower that could show back up down the line. Our boats really were not designed to have a tower either.


I used to look at my boat and smile. Now I look at it as $27k in a 20 yr old boat and there is no way to get that out if it. It's like I could go buy 2 '93 190's for that. They would not be as cool but they would be nice ski tractors that could still have a lot of fun on.


Seriously consider the cost factor in this project, but don't think that the cheapest way is the best way.

If gel doesn't match then it will look bad and will show the damaged area.

If you paint it..........assuming it's a quality job, the damage would be covered up and possibly hidden real nice. Paint is just not as durable as gel.

I would seriously weigh the options of $$$. I'm so far upside down that it is not funny. If I had a wife.......I'm pretty sure that funds for the boat would have been shut off long ago.



Whatever path you choose will be supported.

[MIskier]

Originally Posted by mikeg205

Really - vinyl-ester?... then I need to bust my buddy who claimed to sell resin to MC many years ago. My bad - I assume based on the strength and longevity of some the MC's epoxy resin was used.

It's a project boat - keep going...I say.

You wont find any true high volume boat builders using epoxy resins because of the special materials they required which added expense that isn't easily seen by the average customer as adding value. Heck even Cigarette uses Vinyl-Ester in its laminates.