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Hey all, I am new to whaler central, but I sure do need a lot of info about restroing the hull with so many cracks. The boat is in perfect shape structurally but I will have to redo the entire hull. I have done some sanding and the cracks go all the way thru the existing gelcoat. what I mean is I have to sand all the way to mat before the cracks are gone. Is there any way to refinish without having to sand off all the existing gelcoat, and should I go back with gelcoat or paint. thanks for the help!
what i am doing is sanding down to cracks are nominal in some cases. i have gelcoated the scrapes and punctures and spots where fiberglass has not gel coat. at that point, i plan to paint with a really good polyurethane paint to get it smoothed out.
gsmith: I'm in the same situation as you with a 1970 17' Whaler. My research (this site and CW) led me to expresscomposites.com who sold me a primer/sealer/fairing compound. This material is supposed to, to some degree, span the gelcoat cracks. That being said, I'm not going to get 75% through the gelcoat and stop. I've ground out 100% of the gelcoat on the interior of my boat. Then I'll use a slurry of West epoxy with microballons to fill in and fair out the worst of the grinder ditches, fair those as much as possible and then use the sprayable primer/seal/fairing compound, then sand that to as close to ideal as is possible. After all of that I'll spray the gelcoat. There is a gelcoat spray gun sold at Northern Tool and Equipment for about $35 that is supposed to work good enough for a one-time applicator like myself. I have a 7", light-weight variable speed grinder from (hold your nose) Harbor Freight Tools that suits the task at hand. Ask express composites to send gel-coat sample swatches (I chose JO-30) The Express Composite folks are super helpful, knowledgable and polite. Another thing I'm doing is, while the gelcoat is off of the interior and the temperatures are high, let my boat sit under shelter until mid-Fall to help any water that is in the hull evaporate. My reasons are twofold: 1) w/o the gelcoat the water should evaporate much quicker 2) gelcoat should be sprayed when the temperature is below 80.
