Gel or Imron
 

Looking for some advise. 1999 Active Thunder 28 Savage. Regardless of what I do the bottom of the boat is constantly yellowed. It's impossible to keep up with it. I decided this winter to blueprint the bottom and repair small knicks on the bottom. What are the pros and cons of re-gelling the repaired part of the bottom or respraying the entire bottom with imron. I trailer the boat and is rarely left in the water overnight. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

When I owned a custom shop we were some of the first to use Imron outside of Industrial Applications. At the time, the Dupont Rep advised us NOT to use Imron on the bottom. If I remember, it had to do with it's chemical ability to stay submerged and the water infiltration into gelcoat base while resting on trailer bunks, at chips, etc. which could cause it the "sheet" off under pressure from high speeds and and in high friction situations. Didn't argue, just didn't do it. We always used Gelcoat on bottoms. There may be folks that have done it successfully, maybe GlassDave has some input.

We always use gelcoat on the bottom,
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If I do gel, what can I do about the staining?

It should take less than 30 mins to get the stain off with acid based cleaners. You can use muratic acid or Sno Bowl or The Worx toilet bowl cleaner. Put it in a $10 plastic 1 gallon pump garden sprayer. Spray it on, wait 5 mins and then rinse it very well. I also would not use the acid very often. The more you use it, the faster the stain seems to come back.
The acids are very hard on bare metal so avoid getting it on your aluminum trailer.

I have had the "yellowing" problem too!

The EASIEST and least expensive way is make up a solution of Iron Out and water - you can buy Iron Out at Lowes, Ace Hardware and even some grocery stores - get a garden sprayer and just spray it on. The yellow falls off.

I wax the entire boat a couple of times a season and the yellow still appears and it drives me nuts-- I have found that this is the easiest way-- in fact we have a neighbor at our summer place that has had a ski boat for years with basically a yellow bottom -- finally being the anal retentive person I am I made up 3 gallons and went over to his lift and just sprayed the boat-- it looked like it came out of the box- that's how clean I got it.

all the best

3pointstar

This. I would re-gel the bottom. The staining always seems to hold off on new gel for some time. Once it comes on and you begin using acid to clean it my belief is the acid begins to remove the oils in the gel making it more porous and therefore, less resistant to staining. I use The Works as it is cheap and I've yet to find anything that works better on the type of staining I get on our local pond.

I have used on/off and understand that in the long run it makes the staining come back faster. I'm looking for a more close to permanent solution since I'm having work done to the bottom of the boat. If re-gelling the entire bottom is the only real long term solution, what can I expect to be an approximate cost$?

$:eek:

Lol... That bad...