Topside painting...DIY? Or pay?

K

kdumph

New Member
Dec 17, 2010
98
LA
Boat Info
87 410AC
Engines
454 merks
My 87's paint and gel coat has seen better days. Even with countless hours of work with buff magic and all kinds of other products she just doesn't shine. So here comes the new question.... The boat is mostly white with a painted green stripe around the bridge. Would just re-doing the gelcoat on her bring back that shine and get rid of the blemish of a 20+ year old boat? Or do I need to paint also? I'm a very DIY yourself kind of guy, but this job is a little intimidating. I'm assuming there is no way to do this while in the water . So I'f I'm paying for a haul out why not pay for the gelcoat and maybe paint? Any ideas what a yard would cost me to gelcoat a 41 footer? Or to paint for that matter?
Thanks for the help and advice as always guys.
 
Yeah. . I have seen a number of old boats get paint (Awlgrip) in place of new gelcoat. It seems to be the way to go.

I hear that the stuff can be a bit finicky. . .

. . .I would be interested to see where this thread goes. I have an old blowboat that is heading down this path.
 
You could spray it with imron. The prep is a little labor intensive, but it looks great when done. Maybe you can work something out with a yard where you prep it and they spray it.
 
Probably cheaper to buy a new boat. Depending on the yard you would be looking anywhere from 30K and up to prep and paint the boat the correct way.
 
The prep work is more important the the final coat. Make sure you scuff every bit before painting and wipe it down with tack cloth. Imron is my choice of paint. Don't use to much hardener in it and do add some fish eye remover. You can get it at your local paint supplier. They can help you mix the correct ratios. Don't go cheap on the primer paint. Yes use a primer sealer. Ive seen paint peal in sheets if primer is not used.

You can do the job but it is labor intensive.
 
Alright guys decided to try one last thing that I read a long time ago and after some research and reading some very heated debates I tried it....Vaseline, with very little prep work the results were amazing. Would I do this to a brand new boat? Heck no, but a 1987 that i'm on the ropes with about to start stripping and painting. The choice along with the results couldn't be better. It brought back the deep color over a heavy oxidized hull. It got rid of the chalky white and now its replaced with a shine. Only thing I wish is that I would of figured this out sooner. Going to put a layer of wax over it and see how well it stands up. I'm sure this will spark some nay sayers and arguments, but I wasn't much of a believer until I tried it.
 
Vaseline? That's a new one to me. How did you apply it, and what do you hope to accomplish with it?
 
Same way I do a polish. Use a foam disk on a random orbiter buffer. Then I let it sit for a day, go back wipe off any extra and enjoy a shine. Well so far its accomplished what no other wax, polish, buff magic, could do. It either removed or probably more likely covered up the oxidation.I'm not sure because my pads and rags sure do turn white when rubbing and I already took off all the old wax,polish. When it dries the fiberglass feels normal and you can wax right over it.
From the things I read about it when I researched people say it will last about a season. Hell with a pre prepped boat I think I could do my 41 footer in under two hours with this stuff. My boat shines now and no more white chalky stuff. I'm sold on doing this so far were see if it lasts. Not sure if its good for the fiberglass or not, I'm no expert but it looks good. Besides its saving the time or the cost of having to paint my boat.... One thing it does not do is remove any small scratches that say buffmagic or wet sanding does. I will get some photos up tomorrow for you guys to see.
 
photo-31.JPG photo-32.JPG
 
Last edited:
Been away on a deployment for a while so been neglecting my boat. Figured I'd update this just so people know. Vaseline works fine....for about a month. Don't waste your time applying it unless your trying to pull a fast one or in need of a quick shine for less then a month.
 
saopm said:
Try PoliGlow. It should last a full season. My brother is using it and he seems to like it.
Click to expand...

I used it on my last boat because the finish was not great and it looks great from 10' away but up close you can see that something is not "right" with it. And once it starts breaking down I think it would need to be stripped & re-applied. I sold my boat before it needed it so not sure if you can spot fix it.

LK
 
Once you get to this point you are at a never ending process of waxing just to make the boat look passable. The only real solution is going to be either re-gel the entire boat or paint. I am in the process of painting my hull right now rub rail down as there is not much on the top side to wax and it is easy. I will either clear or paint white the topside next year but now am doing the hull. Ok, actually having someone do the hull, bottom paint, install underwater lights and bunch of other stuff. Good thing about living in FL is I can use the boat year round and maintenance cost in the winter are a little cheaper since alot of boaters don't use the boats now and neglect maintenance until spring.
 
I used Red Max Pro on our older RV and it looked great. Look up Red Max Pro on the RV boards...amazing.
 
My last boat I painted the complete boat in 1995. Precleaned the entire boat then sanded it with a Da using 150 sandpaper. The biggest thing here is a real clean boat. The paint I used was by Sherwin Williams it was called Sunfire. Sunfire is a better paint then Emron in my opinion since it is an Acrylic Urethane. The boat till this day still shines better then gel coat.
I know I’m going to be told you need a primer not so with how porous gel coat is.
I used to work in a fiberglass boom and bucket repair facility where all the buckets and booms were spray painted with Sunfire.There was no primer used on the gel coat and they held up real good in the work field so I figured it would work good on a boat. The nice thing about Sunfire it tacks off fast, so very little dirt gets into it. Still a lot of work.
 
Last edited:
I have been using the poliglow on my sun-damaged 2000 for two full seasons now. Here are my "lessons learned" with two years experience now.

For anyone who has ever maintained a wood boat, they will be familiar with keeping up with varnished wood. Poliglow has to be treated almost like varnish. I.E., you put on many thin coats when starting out. Then in the maintenance years, you sand off the top coat and apply a new fresh coat. If you stay on top of this, it's really simple and not that bad. If you let it go too long, then you are in for a **** load of sanding and many coats of varnish.

So, the first thing you have to get into your head is that Poliglow is not a "apply and forget" product. I put a new coat on the top decks once every six months and the hull once a year. As soon as you see any one spot looking "soft", just touch it up with a coat or two and back in business.

When the finish doesn't look quite right, it means that the application went on too thick and more water was needed in the applicator. OR, there was not enough time between coats and the last coat is still too tacky for the next coat. I can "feel" this in the application as it wants to jerk and stick to the surface...not just glide smoothly over the surface. When it gets sticky or jerky, add more water to the applicator.

I have found it takes 6 coats to get it to the right level on the very first application. Then 3 coats on the touch-up coats. If you stop before this, it will look HORRIBLE and you will be left going "what the hell did I just do". You gotta believe in yourself and push on! The results really start showing at the end. Eventually, you know to stop when the next coat doesn't seem to "soak in" or add any additional shine. If it keeps soaking in though, then you gotta keep going.

Don't wash the boat with anything abrasive or harsh. I use wax-safe boat wash and one of those white mittens meant for a car. I do not use a scrub brush as it will scratch the poliglow. And, yes, it can be scratched and not scratch the boat. Enough and it almost makes the surface look cloudy. I've had this happen where metal on a bathing suite rubbed where a friend leaned against the transom. I thought for sure the gelcoat was scratched but it was just the poliglow. I was able to strip the small area and rebuild up the coats. Good to go again. As mentioned above, about the same one would do with varnish.

Do not put wax over poliglow. I've never done it myself; however, I have seen someone that did wax over poliglow and it turned into a complete mess! If you want additional shine, use something like Honda's Pro spray cleaner and polish, Plexus, etc. It will make it shine right back up. For the cleaner, see...
http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Honda-Spray-Cleaner-Polish/dp/B004FSEJZA

Background, my boat was a severely sun-damaged 2000. I bought the boat in 2009. In 2009, running a hand over the surface left a chalky residue on your hands and you could see porous pits in the gelcoat in some of the worst spots. Unfortunately, I don't have any before pictures (didn't think about it then, just wanted to get a shiny boat and totally didn't think about the whole before/after pics). This is short of a miracle in my case to have any shine near this.

A picture taken with dSLR on 2010 after finishing the base coats...
http://www.nofone.org/gallery/d/25974-3/IMG_0346.jpg

Attached is a picture taken with my iPhone just last month after it was pulled from the water for fall maintenance. Top decks had been touched up 6mo prior to this photo and hull hadn't been touched in 1 year. I ended-up having to put three coats on everything and then splashed back into the water. See attached picture.
 

Attachments

  • photo.jpg
    photo.jpg
    36.4 KB · Views: 195
As far as using Vaseline, I've heard this too! People sometimes use old oil, or some other petroleum product. Looks good for about 2-3 weeks, then needs to be redone. They tell me it is a trick to make the gel look good temporarily for sale!
 
Kendall said:
I used Red Max Pro on our older RV and it looked great. Look up Red Max Pro on the RV boards...amazing.
Click to expand...

Been reading up on it and thinking I'm going to give this a try. Few comparisons on the RV boards with Red Max Pro and Poliglow and seems the Red Max is the better product. Nothing to lose anymore, if it doesn't work I will have to paint. Thanks for the tip, I'm pretty excited to try and bring my 87 back to life after many failed and sad attempts using the normal methods.
 
Like penguin said, Polyglo takes multiple coats to start looking good but does look presentable once enough coats are on.

LK
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
113,247
Messages
1,429,209
Members
61,124
Latest member
hamcfeather
Back
Top