I'm looking at a fairly new Compac with some very worn out gelcote.
Any suggestions on how best to fix this?
and this
and this
and this
The whole sliding hatch is like this too, although I forgot to take a picture.
I've never see such a new boat with such bad gelcote. Is there a way to match new paint or does it all need to be painted. I would think that any patching would not match and would pretty obvious.
Compac 23? Newer than my 1985 but in much worse shape. I'd be more concerned about how it got this bad and what else the owner did or didn't do. Terrible. I'm not a fiberglasser but there are others here that are.
Best, Bob23
Oh my - can only imagine what caused that - only thing I can think of is a bad cover and lots of wind - good thing about fiberglass is it all fixable with gel coat or paint and maybe a layer of fiberglass or two
Gelcoat on a new boat can be applied as thin .010 of an inch. That is roughly the thickness of 2 1/2 pieces of standard paper. It looks like it wasn't applied even that thick if it's worn off that bad in so many places. The easiest and cheapest way I can see to remedy it, is to paint the entire deck. It shouldn't be that hard and it will give you a boat that looks new. Caution, don't, as I once did, paint the deck with a high gloss bright white. You'll never be able to remove your sunglasses when sailing if you do. 8)
I like the cream color of the deck on our '85 19/II when it's wet or recently buffed.
It sure looks like the PO heavily abraded the gelcoat through to the underlying CSM, clearly exposed in some photos. There may have been damage in localized areas that he focused on, or thin areas of gelcoat that sanded through first as he aggressively sanded the entire surface. Areas of gelcoat I've had to repair were about the thickness of an egg shell, 0.01" as Carl describes, but much thicker in other areas.
Applying new gelcoat is possible, but it's much easier to paint. I wouldn't try to blend areas in, prep the surface and paint. The exposed CSM may need to be sealed first. Not sure of the dark areas, make sure the surface is clean and sound. Paint small test areas and let it cure to be sure.
Thanks for the replies guys. It's a 1995 btw.
There is so much gelcoat missing that I was certain that someone had tried to remove it to paint, but the seller insists not. ???
Do I need to prime it first or can paint be applied without a primer?
Any favorite brands of paint?
Thanks again
I?m not a huge fan of paint - the other option is gel coat - a good fiberglass guy could re gel coat those areas and match perfectly - as mentioned gel coat is very thin - too thick it will crack
I agree a good gelcoat is worth saving, but this surface is compromised in too many areas to try and blend in, IMO.
Looking at the last two photos again, it looks like the gelcoat was the tan color of the non-skid, and the surrounding deck was painted white. Areas around the non-skid have worn or flaked and the gelcoat is exposed, but this is more wear-like than the heavily abraded areas where the CSM is exposed. Looks like the cockpit was painted out entirely. I'm sure others will know what the gelcoat was on this model.
One thing I notice, in the heavily abraded areas we don't see the tan "gelcoat" layer. We go directly from white to CSM, a darker orange brown. That suggests the heavy abrasion was preparing the gelcoat for paint, areas sanded through were going to be painted anyway so they weren't too careful. And, the paint is now failing, more on the deck than the cockpit curiously.
Not sure about the hatches in the second photo. They clearly were treated differently, but I think we're seeing that a paint is wearing off and exposing a dark substrate.
If you stripped the paint off, you may find additional damage and sand throughs to the CSM. I would not want to paint over this until I was sure I had something sound and well-adhered underneath. Whether or not this would mean the paint had to be removed would have to be considered.
Your initial post said you were looking at this boat. Keep looking?
Quote from: bruce on January 18, 2023, 11:59:21 AM
I agree a good gelcoat is worth saving, but this surface is compromised in too many areas to try and blend in, IMO.
Looking at the last two photos again, it looks like the gelcoat was the tan color of the non-skid, and the surrounding deck was painted white. Areas around the non-skid have worn or flaked and the gelcoat is exposed, but this is more wear-like than the heavily abraded areas where the CSM is exposed. Looks like the cockpit was painted out entirely. I'm sure others will know what the gelcoat was on this model.
One thing I notice, in the heavily abraded areas we don't see the tan "gelcoat" layer. We go directly from white to CSM, a darker orange brown. That suggests the heavy abrasion was preparing the gelcoat for paint, areas sanded through were going to be painted anyway so they weren't too careful. And, the paint is now failing, more on the deck than the cockpit curiously.
Not sure about the hatches in the second photo. They clearly were treated differently, but I think we're seeing that a paint is wearing off and exposing a dark substrate.
If you stripped the paint off, you may find additional damage and sand throughs to the CSM. I would not want to paint over this until I was sure I had something sound and well-adhered underneath. Whether or not this would mean the paint had to be removed would have to be considered.
Your initial post said you were looking at this boat. Keep looking?
In person my impression was that the deck had been all white, but someone re-paint the non-skid with brown paint (and did a sloppy job) - where the brown is bleeding over in the white areas. It doesn't appear, in person, that the deck was previously brown and had been painted white. I could be wrong though.
The seller is not a sailor and bought the boat on a whim from the original owner who apparently is unreachable. So, it's unknowable what's going on here.
I thought maybe I could just prime and paint. But there seems to be too many unknowns- like how the heck did it get like this. It's possible that it's a re-paint job that's failing. I've never seen gelcoat look like that on a relatively new boat.
It's a shame. It's a nice boat otherwise.
If the owner would agree to it, I would think with a very fine blade, a scalpel or X-Acto knife for example, and a magnifying glass you could closely examine and test the edge of the white and tan layers where they are adjacent, and the pigmented layers visible at the sand throughs. You don't need to flick a flake off, just determine which layer the blade catches on and is on top. Hope this makes sense.
You might be able to tell with just a fingernail.
I have a decent bit of time working on boats, sadly at this moment I am about to head out for work, hopefully tomorrow I can comment better as to what to do in the different areas according to what I did on my own 19 when I completely redid the boat.
One thing I will throw out is that you will need to prime so to speak the fiberglass in order to apply a paint coating over the top of it. Fiberglass tends to leech the paint oddly, and the primer blocks that action overall. The primer will end up being a epoxy primer, and I would recommend following up with a 2 part paint for its ability to hold up better over one part paint systems.
I will make a note to jump back on here tomorrow to respond better!
Mac
I would appreciate the feedback from someone who has already done it. I'm not sure if it's worth the effort if the paint is just going to fail. Thanks.
Is the exposed fiberglass smooth, or can you feel the glass weave? It looks smooth. If it is, paint, with the correct primer, should cover it. I painted an O' Day Widgeon that had small spots like yours. The glass was smooth to the touch as it had been applied correctly with epoxy. I rolled on the primer, sanded it smooth, and repeated. The paint was sprayed on. When it was finished, you could have shaved using your reflection.
If you can feel the weave, apply a thin coat of epoxy and sand it smooth. Then continue with the paint process. I've painted 5 boats to date and each presented its own problem.
note: MacGyver probably has the most experience working on boats as it was his profession for years. He also restored his own Compac 19 to look new. If I recall, he sanded off the factory non-skid and painted new anti-skid on. I would think sanding it off, would removed the gelcoat down to the glass.
CrazyCarl is right on with what he has done, and he is right about what I did on my boat as well.
Exposed fibers is where the leeching would occur, I remember getting a old Trans Am rear wing (I think that was the car, or maybe a different old collectable sports car) and it had a common issue that no one was seemingly able to fix in the autobody field. A friend of mine that runs his own shop had one show up and he passed the job to me, as it had been repaired many times unsuccessfully. I repaired it with a odd technique but everything worked and it held up. This issue was actually leeching effects despite what paint manufactures said would make it a non issue, it still was. The owner took some business cards and before long I had about 6 that I had repaired from all over the US. The common issue was that body shops think they know fiberglass but in all honesty, many times they don't.
Fiberglass is protected by the gelcoat, but at the same time the gelcoat is a downside. Like yin and yang so to speak, they work together but gelcoat is hard, whereas the fiberglass gives. Cracks in gelcoat expose glass strands that then suck water like a sponge.
This causes major and small issues, so how does one decide the best option to repair? Location and expectation of the fiberglass and gelcoat to perform its jobs.
Top deck should be done like Carl stated, applying a thin coat of epoxy like West System, which has the highest ability to be water proof, and not using polyester resins which use a peroxide hardener to catalyst off. That thin coat will be sanded to accept a epoxy primer and will seal the glass strands off from the water. The primer will then coat and allow the paint to adhere as well, sometimes allowing a chemical bond if the company has made it that way, and the paint then provides the final UV protection in the end.
Gelcoat has been used to do all of the above for a long time, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. I remember a old boat I stripped all the bottom gelcoat off due to haze cracking throughout the whole bottom causing blisters to form like crazy. I then ground every blister and filled accordingly, then used 10 layers of a product made by Interlux called 2000. That product had no sanding between layers, chemical adhesion, and chem adhesion as a final to the layer of bottom paint used for the end result. That would seal the bottom superbly. NO GELCOAT used after it was removed.
I used that very same product on my deck. Then followed up with the Interlux product called Perfection which is a two part polyurethane with a decent color setup to choose from. My side stripes I used Brightsides from Interlux, which is a one part poly paint. your final coat of the paints you do not want to sand and buff as the UV inhibitors go to the top during drying. Also you want to use two part paints below single part parts, never the opposite.
That being said, hopefully not a lot of fluff that I just typed, LOL my kids are around and being silly kinda jacks up the concentration. In your case I think you have a couple options, to Gelcoat could work, but it would end in a blotch painted deal so to speak as color variation will be prevalent but if you worry to protect and just sail, then go for it, but if you primed and painted, repaired issues, etc, you would probably paint the whole deck which is alot but you would have a great finished topside deck that you probably wouldn't have to do much to maintain for a while.
My boat sits in my shop since I re did her. I took the whole boat apart and from the ground up re-did it due to the issue on the top deck which was a lot of pitting in the rope non skid areas, and that is why I removed the spots and redid them with the non skid. The knotted rope on the seats and the floor were kept however, but the floor I added some non skid modifier to help out for traffic. The seats came out really well overall.
If you would like, let me know, I just started a YouTube channel up and could make a video about the boat actually and show some of this if it would help out. Might be a good idea anyway to be honest, I will probably just do it.
Everything just takes time to do, but I find if you make a list, and follow the plan, you can accomplish anything with the right knowledge base. I will make the video and post it up and probably even make a few more of other things as well. I am having fun talking about some of this stuff and maybe my efforts will help others in what they are working on.
Just a side note, Interlux still uses the 2000, and Brightsides, but I couldn't locate the perfection. Jamestown Distributors still lists and will sell Perfection so I am assuming it is still in the market. I will email my old Rep for Interlux and inquire about the Perfection line yet. Also Petit makes products as well, although many times were not as user friendly as the Interlux was. I am not a Interlux fan boy, but I am a huge supporter of WEST SYSTEM epoxy, although I can suggest others as well but I have personally over the years put WEST SYSTEM through its paces, and also worked with some of their products for testing prior to market production which was pretty cool times for this old cat............
MacGyver
I am not a pro but have done several boats and several road vehicles, trucks and cars.
On a Columbia 8.7 (29') I had to do extensive core rot repair, so much so that it had to be done from the top side rather than from underneath which would have allowed the topside glass and gelcoat to remain intact. So, take off the top layer of fiberglass, dig out all the old rotten balsa, cut about sixfty slices of balsa from a 4 x 4 (it is laid in like slices of bread with the end grain up and down), then reglass the topside, all repairs done with epoxy resin rather than polyester.
Because of the extensive repairs, and a lot of small patches, after prepping I rolled on two coats of Interlux epoxy based primer and appropriately sanded to prep for topcoat. The hull was almost damage free a few very small ding repairs, but it was oxidized significantly, so I did not prime it, simply sanded it.
Then painted (spray) the whole thing with Dupont Imron catalyzed polyurethane. Job came out great. I kept it for two more years then sold it and I moved from the area and did not see the boat . Eight years later It passed through my new home area and docked in the marina I currently use. It looked great. I assumed the new owner had repainted, but no, it was my job ten years later and looked like new.
Wouldn't recommend Dupont Imron now, think it is a hundred percent automotive and requires post color clear coat application. The last boat I did I used Interlux Perfection. I sprayed it also and it came out great. Perfection is still available, but there are a number of competing coatings that have good reputations.