Gelcoat repair before bottom paint...

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OldCreek
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Gelcoat repair before bottom paint...

Post by OldCreek »

With my research, there's plenty of ways to accomplish this, I guess, but I would like some direct advice.

After sanding down the bottom paint (with respirator and vacuum) my 1966 Columbia has multiple bare spots sanded through the gelcoat to the fiberglass. It's not all my fault as there was a lot of poorly, or old, repaired cracks and filler that chipped off during the process; Although, I was probably a little too aggressive with the sander. But, you know how removing layers of bottom paint is... It looks like the port side probably took a scraping/grounding at some point.

Anyways, how would you fix this. There are MANY spots below the waterline and some at the boot stripe. That's not to mention the multiple spidered cracks and crazing above the water line. I was planning on painting above the waterline with Interlux one part polyurethane after priming. So, below the waterline.... epoxy primer and then bottom paint? (Such as Interlux 2000e or their epoxy primer.) Or, spot treat each fiberglass exposure with gelcoat, underwater filler/patch and then bottom paint? MAYBE epoxy prime the entire boat above and below the waterline at one time....?

[I mention Interlux because I have some of their product on hand (i.e. 2000e)]

You can see some of the old white filler on the bottom left of the 2nd photo and center bottom of the 1st.
Attachments
Waterline/bootstripe
Waterline/bootstripe
2012 random cell pics 423.jpg (11.32 KiB) Viewed 2210 times
Port side
Port side
2012 random cell pics 422.jpg (18.5 KiB) Viewed 2210 times
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Squidd
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Boat Name: Lazy Lady
Boat Type: Paceship PY26

Re: Gel coat repair before bottom paint...

Post by Squidd »

That's not bad, really...When I started my bottom I was sure I had opened a can of worms

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Some blisters down to glass Matt and to top it off looked like someone had tried a cheap repair previous and failed...

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Took a week to sand it all down to a workable base and I had my work cut out

Filled the major divots and depressions with Marine Grade epoxy "filler" and sanded some more to "fair" them out to some semblance of smoothness
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After filling I did a barrier coat of straight epoxy paddled on and tooled smooth...Much quicker build up than multiple coats of barrier /epoxy/"paint"

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Subsequent layers of epoxy had color added to tell where I was working...(clear over clear is tough)

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Wet sand with "pole sander" and then 3 coats of Rustoleum Bottom Paint...

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Maybe not perfect, but good enough to sail and lots less that the "thousands" quoted for a similar "professional" job...

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