Posted by jmerry on 08/02/16 - 5:19 PM
#6
jgortva wrote:
jmerry,
I have traveled down your road previously. I had a 13 foot sport that had faded almost, "baby blue" bottom paint that I ended up stripping off with some stripper I got at Home Depot that worked along with a paper type medium. You applied the stripper, and then stuck the paper medium to the stripper. Hours later after the stripper kind off dried, you peeled the medium off and along with it came the bottom paint. It was real effective, however the sanding scratches left by the prep work made it pretty much impossible to revert the boat back to gel coat without a huge undertaking. I ended up settling on re painting the bottom in black using Interlux VC Performance Epoxy Bottom Paint. It has Teflon in it and has more of a semi gloss sheen to it rather than gloss, but I believe it is pretty much almost as slippery as the gel coat. This way, you would actually have bottom paint on the bottom of your boat in the event your plans change, you want to put the boat in for the weekend, or even sell it.
Jim G.
Thanks so much for the information, Jim.
I've been given similar advise elsewhere, although hopefully, the gel coat could be sanded lightly, polished with rubbing compound, and waxed to bring the original shine back. I too believe that whoever applied the paint probably scored the gelcoat lightly, but I don't believe that it would be hard to restore. It would, however, be plenty of work.
That said, worst case I could strip it off and evaluate - allowing either further refurbishment of the gelcoat or application of a hard paint like VC Offshore.
Do you recall the stripper that you used?
Thanks again!
Jay