Summary
(please click on any of the pictures for a larger one - use the BACK button to come back)
The gelcoat the boat was chalking bad, REALLY BAD. I went over it with various polishes and compounds of all different grits to no avail --- still chalky.
There were so many places that needed repair and new fiberglass.
There were new pieces and parts that I needed to make that would NEVER match the faded, chalky gelcoat.
This all added up to one thing........paint.
I started by stripping the entire boat of all deck hardware. Everything.
The only thing not removed was the toerail which had at least 100,000 bolts through it and the hull/deck joint. This I taped.
The removal of all of the hardware (and subsequent epoxy-ing of all of the holes) took a HUGE amount of time. Much of that was the windows, which some idiot bedded with 5200!!!!! Yikes!
I read as much as possible about painting with two-part paint, and one thing was clear. It needed to be done under cover for best results and allowing for a temperature/humidity margin of error.
So I bought one of those tent thingies and put it up over the whole boat. Only I needed to add extension poles to get it up high enough to be able to paint up on the very top!
This thing was a nightmare over the winter. Trying to keep it from collapsing from wind and/or snow was a constant battle. During the heavy snows, I had to set my alarm clock for every two hours, climb onto the boat (freezing and asleep), and knock the accumulated snow from the tarp. Back to bed, and repeat. YUCK.
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This is the chainplate attachment point. There was barely 1/8" thickness of glass there!
I ground out all the holes and glassed in many layers from both the font and the backside.
More fairing and sanding.
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Here's some work to fill the hole put in for an access hatch that someone put right on top of the seat! Some people just don't "get" it.
Also the traveler mounting locations were glassed back in.
More fairing and anding. |
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I also had to paint all of my new locker lids, and sliding hatch and sea hood.
More fairing and anding. |
Below are some overall pictures of the final prepping process which included filling cracks, fairing holes and chips, glassing over cutouts, re-fairing everything, sanding, sanding, and more sanding.
I had hung some tarps down from the sides of my "pavillion".
I had read an article that said you could paint over gelcoat if you prepped it well enough. Not that I had any faith in articles after the non-skid episode, but it made sense and I went ahead with it anyway. I'll have to let you know how it holds up in a few years... All of the smooth areas were sanded with 80 grit. All of the non-skid areas were cleaned, then abraded heavily with a medium-coarse bronze wire brush. All areas were wiped down multiple times with acetone and Interlux solvent.
The paint was Interlux Interthane Plus 2-part. I put on two coats of Interthane primer first, then 3 coats of the Interthane Plus. I had never done any of this before, so I followed all directions exactly: all middle-of-the-road mixing ratios.
I started out rolling and tipping, but soon found out that with a good foam roller the paint would level out by itself and would actually look better if left alone. This may have had to do with the weather conditions more than anything else.
The weather was perfect (I don't know what impact other weather conditions would have had). We had a 5-day string of low-humidity, 70 degree days --------- in December!! |
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Here are those same views after painting.
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All-in-all, I am VERY pleased. I call this a "10-footer" paint job. It looks GREAT from 10 feet away.
I would easily have done it again.
Lessons Learned
When Interlux says their paint fumes are volatile and hazardous, they mean it --- use a good fume mask.
Interthane Plus goes on VERY thin. Just a LITTLE too much and it runs. Very hard to do on vertical surfaces.
In the future may be updating this with lessons on why not to paint-over-gelcoat.
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