How to gelcoat a boat

The easiest way to clean a boat is to spray it down with water than use a boat cleaning solution on the base of the boat , making sure you get everything off. If you have used a gelcoat coating in the past, you will need to remove it completely with an acetone solution. Small repair jobs can run hundreds even a thousand dollars.

Some sanding very fine (6grit) and buffing will often bring the surface back to life. For the latter, you can use gelcoat resin with appropriate pigment. The best way to restore the hull is to get a low speed random orbital polisher (not a POS from the auto parts store). Then get a large bottle of 3M Marine Finish Restorer and 3M Marine Wax. Work with the restorer on the heavily faded areas.

In this Article: Cleaning Your Boat Using Polish to Restore Shine Applying Wax to Restore the Gelcoat Community QA References Over time and with use, the gelcoat on your boat can become dull, making your boat look old. For current boats , your dealer might be able to supply matching gelcoat. But due to weathering on your boat , it may not match.

There are kits from companies such as Evercoat with pigments to add to the resin for a match. Mix together enough gelcoat to cover a 1- or 2-square-foot area at a time. Measure the suggested amount of color tint from the color chart so that the gel will match the color of the rest of the inside of the boat hull.

Take steps to cover and protect the rest of the boat before starting. Boat builders call the outer skin of a fiberglass hull (or deck) the gelcoat.

It is actually a layer of pure resin a few thousandths of an inch thick. Using a custom spray gun with a pressurized bottle to spray gelcoat on the decks of two whale watching boats owned by Conscious Breath Adventures, then a touchup gun to finish off the motor wells. A boat in the tropics with little or no protection from the direct sun will require a more frequent maintenance schedule than one in a more moderate climate kept in a covered boat shed. Gelcoat is normally sprayed on in multiple coats to achieve the final cured thickness.

Check Out Gel Coat Boat on eBay. Fill Your Cart With Color Today! Does the gelcoat on your boat look chalky and old and need to be restored to shine once again? No problem—a little elbow grease, a buffer, some basic cleaning supplies, and a few hours of your time is all it takes. The shelves of every chandlery hold a slew of gelcoat cleaners, but try boat soap and water first.

Starting with mild cleaner and working your way up to the heavy artillery keeps you from damaging the gelcoat unnecessarily. For the boat renter, knowing what to look for when considering a boat for rental, in terms of hull condition, can help avoid serious underway issues. Simply state gelcoat is the outermost structural layer on a fiberglass boat hull, designed to protect the underlying fiberglass layers. So, the gelcoat on your boat is looking chalky and faded. You’ve cleane compounded and waxe and it looks good for a while, but the chalkiness returns—maybe the red accent stripe that used to look so good looks pink, or the dark blue bootstripe is now baby blue.

As a boat owner, you have a few different options when it comes to repairing gelcoat. You could contact your nearest boatyard and pay a boat repair professional to fix it for you. The advantage with this option is that you are pretty much guaranteed a near perfect repair.

Good boat maintenance is reflected in the appearance of your boat , which is almost totally determined by the condition of the gelcoat. Our boat does not need it but we are considering some winter upgrades possibly including a color change. I know some have painted their hulls instead of gelcoating.

I assume that may have been due to cost and or availability. Browse through all of our boat cleaning products to stock up on the essentials and see what you might be missing. MEK with a cloth wiped over old gelcoat will reactivate gelcoat and provide a better bond with the new gelcoat ? Gelcoat is typically much thicker than a paint and is designed to protect the underlying fiberglass as well as provide a smooth shiny appearance.

But keep in mind that maintaining your boat ’s gelcoat will help you “catch” more customers should you ever want to sell. If you happen to be the owner of a fresh-out-of-the-mol brand-spanking-new boat , you are in luck.

Using a power buffer to clean and polish your gelcoat is good for you and for your boat. Making the move from polishing your boat by hand to doing it mechanically may be intimidating. You don’t want to mess up that shiny gelcoat , but the thought of spending another day manually massaging compound. Proper boat gelcoat maintenance measures will increase the durability of this all-important layer img scr: nanoman. One of the foremost aspects of boat maintenance is the protection of and proper care for its gelcoat.

Gel Coat : Repairing gelcoat on fiberglass boat The topic of Gelcoat is often a mystifying subject for boat owners. Aside from the durable shiny luster gelcoat adds to any fiberglass boat , most owners know little more than wash and wax it frequently. The next step is to match the color of your existing gelcoat.

Start with a white or neutral gelcoat paste (not resin) and begin adding tiny amounts of coloring agent. Mix several test batches of gelcoat and pigment, add hardener and allow them to cure ( gelcoat changes color during the curing process). Do your own fiberglass and gelcoat repair with epoxy resins, filler, sealants, and. However, restoring your gelcoat is one of the easiest boat tasks that you can undertake and is easy to do yourself. To help to restore the color, shine and appearance of your boat , choose a gelcoat restorer.

Depends on how many colors and how extravagant of a gel coat you are looking for. Size of the boat is a factor too. Applying gelcoat to a fiberglass surface is not really necessary, as gelcoat is a fiberglass resin itself. Most people think that the best way to prepare a fiberglass boat for a gelcoat application is to have it done in a local car repair shop, where they handle similar coats everyday. Gelcoat is a major ally in the quest to maintain a sailboat’s like-new look.

And with some annual spring commissioning — cleaning, polishing, and tending to minor scrapes and gouges — your boat ’s gelcoat life span can be significantly extended. Getting to the point of applying your color matched gelcoat is one of the last steps in finishing off your repair(s). Let’s say that the gelcoat on your boat looks less than stellar—as in chalky like a chalkboard less than stellar.

Maybe your blue boat now has a purplish hue, or your topsides don’t reflect anything other than poor care. Gel coat application is a science. Learn the proper methods to apply gel coat in composite manufacturing.

Fiberglass ski boat with gel coat.