To paint, or not to paint?
 

Hello everyone!

In October I sold my 24' cabin cruiser and bought a 30' Scarab Panther. I want to get the hull redone, should I re-gelcoat the boat or have it painted? Imron? or would it be better to have the bottom gelcoated and the topside painted? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, any good places in West Michigan, G.R. area.

Also any concerns on this boat that I might need to be aware of. It is an '86 Panther, TRS 425 drives, 454's that have been built to about 500 hp, it appears from a shop in Pompano beach FL, Exact Performance stickers everywhere. Anyone know of the the shop good or bad, 25 pitch quicksilver props, 5400 RPM's at 78 mph. All comments appreciated good, bad, and the ugly!

Thanks in advance, Jason :)

if the running surface is in decent shape leave it alone. from the hard chine up you should use a high quality automotive paint. i use PPG's dbc basecoat with DCU 2021 clearcoat. i think Micher T is in your area and is one of the industries best. you will have alot of fun with that boat. the scarab panthers were always one of my favorites. come to think of it . .i may have an original wellcraft sales brocure for that boat. :cool: :cool:

Contact Mitcher T,,, He does Fabulous work!
If you ned help geting in touch with him let me know !!

If you look in the Tech Q+A section you can see the process that I went through with my boat. I am a gell coat fan. If you mix it with Durratech then all I can say is this is not your fathers gellcoat!!! The durratech makes it MUCH better to work with and lays it out better and shines it up better then EVER before. There is no extra work with Gell over paint, just different order that you do the work. Paint you have to sand down to 600 gell coat is the same way. With paint you do it before you spray with Gell you do it after. Now if you plan on doing graphics then the paint is teh way to go. Just remember there is NO paint made that is warranteed for under the water line use. Only Gell coat is good for that. If you plan on trailering every day then you are probably ok but Imron says any more then 3 days in the water with their paint and you are pushing your luck.

Jon

Thanks guys,
I think it will be gel on the bottom an paint on the top.
1Boatnut I would like to get in contact Mitcher T. If you can help me it will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks! Jason

http://mitchertcustompainting.com/

I am going to have my fountain done soon,

See http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...threadid=39446 Go to second page.

Here we go again paint over gel if I am not mistaken the reason you are painting it is because the gelcoat has failed so how much sense does it make to use the same stuff that failed in the first place? as far as sanding with 600 before you paint, the minimum you should use is 320 aand I have painted boats that have sat in the water for 6 weeks and never left the dock and had no problems and Mercury does not gelcoat their drives but you leave them in the water

So how is the bottom of the scarab you have? does it have any blisters? or other issues? you could seal it with a barrier coat then paint over it with a bottom paint? to strip a bottom and seal and gel coat it is BIG money, but it is the factory way, some people get scared when they see paint on the bottom of a performance boat, so if resale is an issue gel it, if it is not barrier coat then paint, what you think
Mark

The bottom has a some of gouges in it, looks like someone parked in the rocks once or twice, then tried to fill them in with some type of epoxy. It powders off with a fingernail. The hull appears to be in good shape besides the gouges and some stress marks.

I am just looking for the most economical way to get the boat all white, repair the chips, remove the 4" red stripe down the side, and graphics. The boat will be trailered.

After spending the last hour reading the thread by Audiofn I see I have alot of choices and a lot more knowledge on the subject. Everyone had great Ideas throughout the thread. Audiofn's boat looks great! it is exactly what I wanted to do.

Not to concerned with the resale aspect of it. Just want it to look fresh when I have it.

And sorry about beating an old topic to death. :(

I don't think that is epoxy powerdering off, epoxy is what I think you want to fix the holes or spyder cracks with.I went with VC performance epoxy bottom finish.Ideal for trailered or rack stored powerboats.This is not a ablative & sloughing paint and is made for below the water line. Produces a hard slick semi-gloss white finish with teflon to make wet sanding and burnishing easy.Contains no antifouling biocide.The two gals. did my 27'. I just sanded with 80 and painted very easy. $114.99 at West Marine.For the top side there are many to chose from, Awlgrip seems to be the choise of alot of boat painters but at 200.00 a foot I'm glad all I needed to do was my bottom.:cool: