Specific Gel Coat Questions

[CaptainKickback]

While I have gotten a great deal of help on my thread(see link in my signature), I have posted several gel coat questions there, but on a long thread, questions don?t always get noticed. So, I thought I would post them on a separate thread.
The boat is a 1981 Sea Ray 255 Sedan Bridge. I will be re-gel coating the entire boat, changing it from the current puke yellow. Here are my questions:

1. How much of the existing, 30 year old gel coat should I remove before prepping and spraying the new gel coat? Since it appears that more than 30 to 40 mils of gel coat can lead to problems (crazing, etc), do you count the existing gel coat thickness plus the new gel coat thicknes?

1. Do I need to use a DA sander to remove the gel coat or can I use a disc sander? Someone said the disc sander would leave too many swirl marks and grooves to be able to fair out.

 

[ondarvr]

Re: Specific Gel Coat Questions

Don't worry about removing gel coat, the more you take off the more trouble you will have keeping the surface smooth. This is with either sander, but the DA will do a better job, just hold it flat.