Are flourescent lights bad for gelcoat? I was thinking of putting new fixtures in my garage with CFL's instead of incandescent bulbs, but I'm not sure if they produce harmful rays to my boat during winter storage. Any ideas?

I can't imagine how they could hurt something as tough as gelcoat, millions of humans work under them all day with no ill effects.

The main concern with gel is UV. The UV output of standard use fluorescent bulbs is really low. From memory: 8 hours of time with the lights on is equal to only a few minutes of time in the sun. I'm thinking back to studies done for offices. If it were bad for Gel, it would be bad for people too... basically, you'd see people that worked inside all day come out with a nice tan.

Don't put to many Flourescent lights in there! Flourescent bulbs seem to highlight flaws in your boat you didn't even know you had. Be prepared to see every swirl mark on the bow.

LMAO! That's exactly what I was thinking! Those damn lights dring out imperfections in everything. Gel coat, drywall, hell even hot chicks!

I have found that black lights work much better

Flourescent are better than the Metal Halide lights for this reason. There are really your only two options for this application. Go with the flourescent lights. The 8' HO Low Temp Ballast lights are available at Home Depot.

Long discussion on this thread:
http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...+Halide&page=3

That's what I have in the "workspace" of my garage. 4 8' HO low temp 100 watters. They are bright!

You do hve to watch out for metal halides. We had a customer park a piece of portable machinery under one with about 2' of clearance. Melted a very expensive phenolic cased sensor in about 10 minutes.

If they are not going to be on 8 hours a day, it probably won't hurt. If you are worried about it though, I would hang some tubular flourescents, and then get UV blocking tubes from McMaster. I've checked them with a UV meter, and the reading was zero with those filters.

Michael