Painting fiberglass?

rbryn

Member
May 27, 2009
254
Wilmington, NC
Boat Info
2003 260DA
Engines
350Mag MPI Bravo® III (re-powered 2013)
I was doing my seasonal coat of paint on the drive and i noticed that some of the paint had peeled of the swim platform.

I'm guessing i will need to clean the area up and repaint it. What type of paint is best for this.
53a505cd684565dea5f81ae99326b0f3.jpg
 
Pretty sure that not paint but, gel-coat..

Mine was much worse, I sanded it and applied white bilge paint from Interlux.
2 years later it still looks good.
 
Looks like a very thin layer of spray gel. Might be paint?


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Yes, it is a thin coat of gelcoat. Depending on how 'pretty' you want it to be, will determine the fix. Any 'above the waterline paint' will be fine. Bilge paint is a fine option.
Another way is coating the area with epoxy. The epoxy will waterproof the area even better and bind the remaining edge of gelcoat to the underlying polyester/glass. You can even tint the epoxy if you want with readily available (and inexpensive) coloring tints. Personally, I'd do the tinted epoxy thing, but I have this stuff laying around my garage from other projects. But paint is good, too.
 
Dennis has the best answer....

As I recall, I did paint the area with "West Systems" epoxy to seal it then, painted with bilge paint.
My repair was a little more involved though.....I was repairing a severely damaged platform.

I expect it to be a touch up area that I'll address at bottom painting time but, so far it's looks fine.

Found some pics.

Before..and after.
3212cf98b9394840146fbd1dbdfc0b2b_zps65ed65ee.jpg

A6F7E4EC-FA6B-40A3-A3A1-D3F038AED595-7308-00001693A1DD6085_zps9e7738cc.jpg
 
Last edited:
Wanted to thank everyone for the info. I ended up sanding the edges, cleaned with acetone then putt a coat of bottomkote on it. Looks just like new. Apparently the paint they use on these is an enamel of some sort, it flaked off like dried enamel paint does.
 
Bottomkote? I hope you meant Bilgekote since its above the waterline.
 
Doh... yeah... Bilgekote on the fiberglass not Bottomkote... as you might be able to tell from the tape in the picture (just to the left), I was also applying Bottomkote in several areas - brain fart.
 

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