To Paint, Or Not To Paint

[ondarvr]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

What I meant by buffing dry, was no water with the fine polishing compound, or if you do have water in it, just buff longer until its dry. Water in effect makes the grit slightly coarser than without it and for a high gloss you want the grit to be very fine and slow cutting.

Heat is not desired for cutting or polishing on gel coat, you're not trying to melt anything, just remove the fine scratches from sanding, or in this case the scum on the surface.

 

[wishboneZ51]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

My comments are in no way bashing anybody here. I know everybody is trying to give advise for the betterment of you fixing your paint job or gelcoat!

The problem I have is the lack of understanding of Gelcoat as well as paint correction measures as a simple task with a lot of effort. This cannot be further from the truth.

In all my years as a proffessional detailer I have seen just about every mess up you can make to a paint job of any type!

I am the detailer for my Corvette Club in all of Phoenix Arizona and spend hundreds of hours fixing bad buffing and paint corrective measures from actions taken by mis guided and false direction. I detail $300,000 cars that are damaged all the time.

What I am trying to say is people take detailing as a joke, or off as being simple and not complex which is completely false. To be a great detailer you need to first understand the chemical components and properties of paint to fully understand what is happening when you apply ANY product to your painted surface. Whether you are doing severe paint correction, polishing or waxing.

In your case and what you have with your boat I am shocked that it even looks the way it does now with everything that you have done with it. Ofcourse your gel coat may look ok in the direct sunlight from so many feet away, but I assure you that if you take some halogen lights and put them two feet from your gel caot at night time you are going to see a world of a mess that you have created.

Personally and as a shipmate, if you lived here, I would be more then happy to help you in fixing your gel coat, hands down. It is really hard and would take I dont even know how many days it would take me to give you the necisary knowledge to properly fix your paint problems.

My suggestion is to do some serious research of Proffessional detailers where you live and get a lot of references. Then I would pay the money to have your gel coat fixed by a pro. You will still be far way ahead of putting a new paint job on your boat in which I personally really like.

A pro can make a turd look good which is a lot when you consider what you have to deal with. You have a badd ars boat and if it were mine, well if I was you, I would pay the well deserved money it is going to take to make that boat gleam.

I have given plenty of classes on paint protection, correction, and show quality detailing. A paint job can make or break the look of any finish.

Like I stated from the begining, I am in no way trying to bash anybody on here which is another reason why I am not quating anybody! I am simply trying to give a real perspective of your situation and where you really stand with what you have and the results you are going to get as apposed to a pro taking care of it. This is going to save you serious amounts of confusion, money, time and overall satisfaction with your boat.

I love the fire and energy that everybody on here gives to the boating community and I am learning leap years fromall of the knowledge from proffesionals on here! Which is one huge reason why I am here. I am merely giving you and others a proffesional perspective to one piece of rebuilding our boats to master pieces. We all have strengths to bring to the table.

Good luck with whatever you do, and I would be more then happy to take your boat off your hands because it is the bomb!

 

[ondarvr]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

You need to generate Heat when rubbing out Gel. Your basically Melting the surface of the PLASTIC ( thats what gel is..plastic as in pepsi bottle ) and Rubbing/melting to a finish. If your not creating that heat..then you will not get a finish that will last nor doing any justice to your hull.

YD.

There is none of this type of plastic in gel coat and you don't want to melt anything, these are not thermoplastics that can be reformed time after time, they are thermosetting plastics, where heat is generated during the curing process and when they harden that?s pretty much it, they can't be reformed. Heat can cause some minor changes, but not as it does with thermoplastics.

 

[Yacht Dr.]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

Now dont get me wrong here..Im not saying bring it up to 1000 deg

I have walked barefoot on some dark gelcoated decks that could fry and egg..Im not even talking about that much heat. Just enough to rub it out.

like buffing out 600 grit scratches..your melting ( rubbing ) those scratches into another.. Not removing much.

But.. I have only been doing this professionally for 20 years so I Might be wrong..

I can agree that there have been boats that have dry skin coats in the glass that still have air entrapped between the glass and gel. In that case you Will get thar air to expand with heat leaving a Texture.

Like wishbone said.. there is a definate technique to buffing ( Paint buffing is different then Gel ). And in my experience each boat is different.

Looking good though .

YD.

 

[rfdfirecaptain]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

FINAL UPDATE:

Well gang, thanks for hanging in here with me. Today I finally found the "twisted wool" that ondarvr was talking about. At the same time I found the 3M pads that Tail_Gunner likes. I bought both. FYI... wool is a little less than half the price of the foam pad. The foam pad was $25 including tax. Ugh!

I used both types of pads. Liked them both too, but I would need a lot more experience before I had an opinion one way or the other.

Anyway, here is the final product. I'm DONE!!! The first photo was taken in the shade and the second in direct sunlight. It's certainly got a few flaws, but I'm learning.

Thanks again for all help you guys gave me. OK, criticism time???? Don?t be shy!

 

[redfury]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

You need to park that thing next to something that will reflect into the Gel coat for us to really get a proper look as to the depth of your gloss, the photos look pretty flat, not actually having ever seen the boat IRL.

then, throw up a before and after shot...bet you get your accolades real quick! It's all about setting up the money shot!

 

[rfdfirecaptain]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

redfury:

"Before" and "during" photos have been posted all through this thread.

 

[redfury]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

redfury:

"Before" and "during" photos have been posted all through this thread.

I realize that, but putting them both in the same post would be easier to compare the before and after instead of going to multiple pages in the thread to find the right shots/angles...it's all about presentation! Don't any of you people pay attention to advertising?

 

[proshadetree]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

Fire captain I do not think you did it right come do mine and practice some more and then you will know how to do yours. Looks good man.

 

[ondarvr]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

like buffing out 600 grit scratches..your melting ( rubbing ) those scratches into another.. Not removing much.

YD.

There is no melting taking place, you are only removing material on the surface and getting down to the bottom of the scratch.

Now if you use Vaseline or one of the oil, fat or wax based compounds, they do fill some of the imperfections in the surface and hide them until the they get washed off or evaporate. The clear coat type coatings for rejuvenating gel coat do the same thing, they are a bit more durable than oil and fat, but do the same thing by filling and hiding the imperfections. Like you said in other posts, these coatings can cause problems in the future if you plan to paint the surface because they can be difficult to remove.

Heat can cause a change in surface profile and it can be from the sun on dark colors like you described, or from the buffer. When resin or gel coat cures at an ambient temperature (60 -90F room) there is still some residual curing left to take place. When the laminate is heated at a later date to a high temperature in the sun or with a buffer, some of this uncured resin begins to further crosslink resulting a small amount of shrink, this is commonly called post cure. This shrink slightly distorts the surface, you may see some of the glass print through to the surface or it may just look like orange peel.

 

[Lou C]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

the boat looks very much better than the beginning pix, and this brings up a question, if you have a badly oxidized boat, and you are able to bring it back, when how long can you realistically expect it to last (with regular waxing) before this needs to be done again? I ask because my 88 Four Winns was wetsanded and buffed before I bought it and it looked great....for a while....and went totally back to being oxidized....I had it done again (not wetsanded) but buffed and polished...again ....looked good...then back to oxidation....did it myself with a Makita rotary from properboatcare.com, used the gel coat labs stuff....compounded, polished, waxed...looked good....then in about a month...back...at this point I can't see doing this again....is my only option paint....if so I will get it done but I can't see the point of having more or less constant maintenance on the gelcoat....

Never again a colored boat....only white for the next one....

 

[Yacht Dr.]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

Your gel isnt oxidized..your wax is

Dont wax... there is your problem..

YD.

 

[ondarvr]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

the boat looks very much better than the beginning pix, and this brings up a question, if you have a badly oxidized boat, and you are able to bring it back, when how long can you realistically expect it to last (with regular waxing) before this needs to be done again? I ask because my 88 Four Winns was wetsanded and buffed before I bought it and it looked great....for a while....and went totally back to being oxidized....I had it done again (not wetsanded) but buffed and polished...again ....looked good...then back to oxidation....did it myself with a Makita rotary from properboatcare.com, used the gel coat labs stuff....compounded, polished, waxed...looked good....then in about a month...back...at this point I can't see doing this again....is my only option paint....if so I will get it done but I can't see the point of having more or less constant maintenance on the gelcoat....

Never again a colored boat....only white for the next one....

Its probably best to start another thread on this so it can be addressed separately, or do a search because its been discussed frequently and recently.

 

[MainShip36]

Re: To Paint, Or Not To Paint

So far everyone has told me not to paint this boat. Here is a link to photos that were taken when lighting conditions ect. were perfect.
http://s990.photobucket.com/albums/af27/andreawilder2009/1993 Crownline CR 250/
Scroll through and you'll see that the gelcoat looks pretty good in this set of photos.

Below I have pasted some close up photos that show how bad it really is. Two photos show the swirl burnished marks that I made by using Shurhold's Buff magic on a wool pad buffer at about 6k rpms.

If you read the instructions for buff magic, they recommend 1500 - 2000 RPM for that stuff. Not 6000, maybe thats why you had problems.

I have been using their orbital polisher running about 2000 rpm and my gelcoat looks brand new and no swirl marks.