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:

All paint manufacturers cringe at the thought that you are going to paint under the water line. Ya some get lucky and it lasts. Every paint job that I have seen on a boat that gets left in the water has blistered, and I think that blisters look worse then faded paint, not to mention that the water is getting into the grass(a very bad thing). If you are LUCKY enough that the water that gets through your paint does not cause blisteres then you are still taking water on through your paint and it is soaking into your glass. Durratech creates a MUCH better barrier to water then any paint. Gell is also thicker so when you bump a dock or put your boat up on the sand then you are not fine. With paint the smallest abrasion will go right though it. I am not sure when the last time you all used Gell, but if you have not tried it with Durratech then you have not tried the new gell coats. It is tougher, buffs up nicer, holds gloss longer and looks better then ever before. Don't get me wrong paint is fine for trailer boats, but there is NO WAY I would put it under the water line. Ass far as drives are concerned most of us paint them every couple of years, do you want to have to do that to your boat?

Jon

Do you need to strip the gel-coat to apply new?
Isn't gel-coat colored and sprayed on like a paint?

It has been years since I did fiberglass layups. But that was in reverse order. 1. mold, 2.mold release, 3. colored gel-coat, 4.polyesther-fiberglass, 5. remove from mold.

To repair gel-coat I think 1. clean, 2. repair cracks, 3. sand smooth, 4. spray colored gel-coat?, 5. buff to a beautiful finish? Am I missing something?

I understand using a urethane base paint on the bottom w/out a barrier in between will be trouble. Urethane absorbs moisture, so does polyester. H2O breaks down the resin/glass bonds in fiberglass and weakens the structure. Also might add a couple extra pounds.

Does any know roughly how much it might cost to have a 30' bottom gel-coated I called a place in G.R. R&K Finishing and he told me $500-$5000, and not to paint the bottom. That was a little to broad price range for me.

I'm going to call Mitcher T tomorrow and get some more input.

Raypanic beautiful boat.

And once again thanks for the input!

Gel would be like factory, if that is more than you want to spend look into "wetting " any spots that are into the glass with a epoxy resin something like Interlux Epiglass , it is less pourous then polyester resin, that will seal the glass then gel over it and sand or use something like VC performance epoxy bottom finish or Interprotect 2000E, a friend of mine got a quote on a 31 foot boat to take off all the gel seal the glass then apply new gel and shape and sand, it was 10000.00 dollars, a lot of money and a lot of labor{100 hours} but shop around maybe this guy was high on his quote, but most of the time you get what you pay for

$10,000 is a little much for me. I don't think we'll be stripping off the gel to soon.
The hull is not in bad shape, just some scratches, and tiny stress cracks. It does shine up good with wax. Maybe I'll just epoxy them up, and seal them. I have used some stuff from intelux on my old boat with decent results, I think I got it from west marine.

Maybe after that I'll concentrate on the topside. Painting the topside shouldn't be an issue? I have some friends that paint semi trailers with Imron. I have read reports on Imron an Awlgrip if they don't know what they are doing it might cause serious respiratory issues!

Rookie if you are going to gell then there is NO need to sand it all off, just sand with 80 grit and spray. If you use Durratech there is no need for a wax coat on top. Then you will have to sand and buff out the new paint. You said there are just some scratches and cracks that you want to take care of, but the rest is fine. May I suggest that you find the best gell coat guy in your area and let him blend the repairs. I know that some people say that you can not do it but a guy that knows what he is doing can take into account the blend and you will never know it was done. Just a thought.

The quote that I got to do the job was about 150 per foot of boat. For a 30 foot boat that would be 4500 bucks.

Jon

4500 sounds very reasonable.
Just one more option to consider. I have about two months to get this all done.
Thanks once again Audiofn,
Jason

Hey Jon was that quote to spray over your gel? my friends boat was a problem boat, it was to strip all gel, seal the fiberglass then gel coat,
Rookie if your hull is in ok shape anything that shoes glass seal with an epoxy resin then get a gel coat kit that you mix up. it comes with a clear plastic sheet that you cut to size then cover the new gel coat to get the oxygen out, the finish is great and you do not have to sand much, if you have some big areas do like Jon said, just my 2 cents
Mark

I doubt that was to strip it to glass. From what I have been told that is not required. I did not do that on my boat. As far as the problem gell coat what do you mean? if it is "lumpy" then yes you have to sand those areas but you should get them smooth WAY before you go through the gell. Good luck

Jon

Hey Rookie or Audiofn, if you have that link to your (Audiofn's Formula) rebuild, please post it here or email me the link because in all the re-design of this site I have lost it and would like to look at it again! I tried looking in the T&A search but no luck! Thanks!

Here is the link to Audiofn's project, I have it bookmarked!

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...hlight=audiofn

The worse repair would be a gouge that is ~ 15" long, .250" wide, and .125" deep max. there might be 8 of them not as bad. I do not see any glass showing through, supposedly it has been there for the duration of the previous owner 2-3 years. I can run the boat the way it is right now and not worry.

I just bought the boat for what I believe to be an excellent price, and I 'm going to use the money I saved, looking a comparable boats, to distinguishing it as mine. :) If I can fill in the gouges, scuff up the gel-coat and blast it with bright white I'll be happy. Now what to blast it with is the problem. :D
Once again a big thanks, Jason

By the way, I'm going to ask a prop question on the T&A in a minute. I'll research the topic first, as to not beat another old topic to death. LOL Feel free to answer that one to!

hey Jon the boat I was talking about had blisters real bad, they wanted to strip it to seal the glass then re gel it, but like you said 90% of repairs don't need to go that far

Ya if you have blisters you have to go all the way down with it. That can be a HUGE project and depends on how bad the blisters are. Some times you have to go into the glass and then replace some.

Jon