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I know this question has probably been asked hundreds of times but searching didn't reveal anything I was looking for.
I have a 1987 15' Whaler that I'm getting ready to restore. I'm not new to fiberglassing or painting. I've done it full time for a couple years and have been doing it part time for 10 years.
The question, how do I prep the interior to prevent the thousands of 1/8" to 1/2" cracks from reappearing? This will be the first time attempting a project like this on a Whaler. I've seen a couple that were painted with Awlgrip and the cracks reappeared through the paint less than a year later.
I haven't decided yet whether to paint it or gelcoat it. If I went with paint, I was thinking about using an epoxy barrier coat like Interlux's Interprotect to help with the cracks. Then Alexseal epoxy primer then topcoat. If I went with gelcoat, I'm not sure what to do about the cracks.

Any opinion or suggestions are appreciated.

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I think there are two choices for taking care of the cracks.
one would be to sand the gel coat down past the cracks. ( that is what I did to my 15)
Two would be to grind and fill every inch of each crack. depending on how many you have this could be a bit of a chore. by the way I primed with high build primer and painted with awlgrip.

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That's what I was afraid of. :(

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It has been my general consensus that the only way to make the cracks go away is to take them down to the glass.
I did a limited restoration of my 13' in 95; I used various types of barriers to hide the cracks most cracks came back fairly quick plus using most of the items only exaggerated the crack, they appeared bigger and deeper than before when did come back. I'm restoring again, this time I used a dremel and spent a day gouging each crack and filling. The boat had a wild zebra appearance when I finished but the process went a lot faster than you would think. Though to my dismay, when I flipped the boat it had twice as many cracks on the bottom.

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If you're referring to the minor spider cracks that are present in almost all fibeglass boats, I'd just let them go and enjoy the boat. All that I have seen repaired seem to always reappear eventually

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Get yourself a 5 inch angle grinder and a flap disc, and grind them all off. Simple as that. There is no fix other then get rid of them, If they are gone they can`t come back.

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i just finished restoring the interior on my 15 and did exactly what is recommended above, sand them until they are gone then paint with high quality marine grade paint.
The larger cracks, will need to be hit with a "dremmel" and filled with gel coat before painting
take a look at my personal page, shows mine in stages
so far no cracks have re-appeared

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You don't have to necessarily use gel to fill the area if you’re going to paint the boat, I would use something like a polyester putty to fill the void after you clean it out.

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I'm not talking about the usual stress cracks that all boats have. I'm talking about the random cracks that I've only seen in Whalers that cover the entire horizontal surface that has been exposed to sunlight. I've seen them in Whalers that were as few as 5-6 years old and all of the older ones that haven't been under cover most of their life. I've been around boats for most of my life and worked on them for a long time and I can't think of another manufacturer that has such bad gelcoat. But, they're still my favourite boats at 15' and 17'.

I can't decide what I want to do. At least they're concentrated on a few large kind of flat spots. I've got a long weekend coming up so I'll have to decide by then. I want this boat in the water for the summerB)

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Dunno about bad, mine's over 30 years old and still looks new. Not a spider, not a stress or a craze. B)

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Is there any way that you can post some close up pics of the cracks you are talking about? Also...........you can put the boat in the water..............emjoy it for the summer and then address the cracks in the fall! B)