I had a guy do some gelcoat repair for me in the past on my last boat and he was reasonable I thought. Each time I picked up my boat, I would never have known there were chips down to the fiberglass in those spots. I have a new boat now and this man had retired, closed down his shop and does work out of a shop he built on his property. Has a crane and everything. I guess after 35 years he decided it was time to slow down and he now cherry picks jobs to stay busy.
My boat is 28 years old and it needs some repairs. Its 22.5' and a cuddy cabin. Chips, holes from things that used to be somewhere and an area on the keel that is smooth/worn down to fiberglass from years of beaching. This is all below the rubrail. The top of the boats gelcoat is in really good shape and is white, an easy color to match. The bottom of the boat and a V shape teal color on the bow. There is oxidation near the transom thats apparently bad enough, that my gel coat guy said he couldn't guarantee the oxidation wasn't too deep to be sanded out. Also that he could come close, but could not match the original teal color 100%. He suggested I just redo the teal with new gelcoat. He suggested Lilly Ram or Spectrum (I was going to look at color chips). The quote I got was $5500, plus some extra hundreds to fill holes (where an old bimini used to be etc). I was estimating up to $6500-$7000 if I asked him to do a few little things like replace the thru hull connectors, or add a brass, threaded drain plug. I want a couple of 3/4" dia. 12" low profile hand rails on the back too.
I called around and other shops in my area were immediately going to $20k and up when I described this to them over the phone. Granted my guy saw it in person and they didn't, I was shocked at the difference in price. I was quoted at 3 places, my guy and two others around $1000 to repair the worn keel and chips on the front and maybe a few hundreds more for patching some holes here and there. One guy I spoke to on the phone talked about it being a lost art and how there are all these hacks now and the guy I had worked with before he never liked anything he saw come out of his shop. This is a nice boat and worth restoring, but it isn't a show boat. I'd like to change the color of the teal and would love to do it for under 10K, hell I liked the $5500-$7000 number I had after talking to this guy I know. Now Im confused. I've never seen work from my guy I was unhappy with. He never did anything big like this for me before, so I only know his shop was in Phoenix for decades. Any thoughts on this? How can there be that big of a price difference? I attached a couple pictures to show the teal areas I am referencing.
My boat is 28 years old and it needs some repairs. Its 22.5' and a cuddy cabin. Chips, holes from things that used to be somewhere and an area on the keel that is smooth/worn down to fiberglass from years of beaching. This is all below the rubrail. The top of the boats gelcoat is in really good shape and is white, an easy color to match. The bottom of the boat and a V shape teal color on the bow. There is oxidation near the transom thats apparently bad enough, that my gel coat guy said he couldn't guarantee the oxidation wasn't too deep to be sanded out. Also that he could come close, but could not match the original teal color 100%. He suggested I just redo the teal with new gelcoat. He suggested Lilly Ram or Spectrum (I was going to look at color chips). The quote I got was $5500, plus some extra hundreds to fill holes (where an old bimini used to be etc). I was estimating up to $6500-$7000 if I asked him to do a few little things like replace the thru hull connectors, or add a brass, threaded drain plug. I want a couple of 3/4" dia. 12" low profile hand rails on the back too.
I called around and other shops in my area were immediately going to $20k and up when I described this to them over the phone. Granted my guy saw it in person and they didn't, I was shocked at the difference in price. I was quoted at 3 places, my guy and two others around $1000 to repair the worn keel and chips on the front and maybe a few hundreds more for patching some holes here and there. One guy I spoke to on the phone talked about it being a lost art and how there are all these hacks now and the guy I had worked with before he never liked anything he saw come out of his shop. This is a nice boat and worth restoring, but it isn't a show boat. I'd like to change the color of the teal and would love to do it for under 10K, hell I liked the $5500-$7000 number I had after talking to this guy I know. Now Im confused. I've never seen work from my guy I was unhappy with. He never did anything big like this for me before, so I only know his shop was in Phoenix for decades. Any thoughts on this? How can there be that big of a price difference? I attached a couple pictures to show the teal areas I am referencing.
