C-Forum

I'm going to repaint or maybe regellcoat a Viper and was wondering what if anything have any of you guys done in that area. I would say screw it and paddle it ugly but it's become kind of a little project and I want to make it look nice, since I probably will baby the boat a little and the volume seems kinda low for my weight so I don't see me taking it down anything where it could get really damaged (I got plastic for that). I don't know if its possible to get the factory shine back on it w/o some good gellcoat work or if there is something else out there that I could use. I figure the bottom of the hull dosen't have to be slick and shiney, I could probably get away with rolling on some layers of a white marine epoxy or gellcoat substitute as long as it dosen't want to grab rocks . But I would like to get the top of the deck looking nice. Any sugestions?

Gelcoat can be a bit tough to get a smooth coat on if you don't spray it. If it is a polyester gel coat, you will need to add wax so it doesn't stay tacky.

If you are capable of spraying paint, I would suggest a linear polyurethane marine paint.

They can be difficult to work with, but they are tough, and you can restore that factory shine if you are careful.

DuPont makes this kind of paint - used on boats all of the time and so does Interlux (interthane)


F

Never done a paint job on an old glass boat. But here is my guess:

Wax it and forget it. If you want a project, learn how to build a boat. All you are going to learn from "restoring a factory shine" is how to do auto paintwork.

I think you are going to have to prepare the surface of the deck very well to get it shiny by painting. After you smooth the deck surface to 800 grit or so, you are going to have to spray paint it. The epoxy finishes by Dupont are tough enough to last for a while.

The "factory shine" of a boat actually comes from the inside surface of the mold from which the boat was pulled. The super-smooth mold surface is transferred to the outer layer of resin that is used to reinforce the cloth that your boat is made of. Whitewater boat makers to do use gel coats when laying up.

The term gel coat means a layer of tooling gel applied to a plug during mold construction. Special spray equipment is needed to apply tooling gel. (A very fine artist's brush can be used, but the result is a thick and often uneven gel coat inside the mold.) Gel coats are not reinforced with fibers, so they are brittle and lack durability.

If you tried to apply a tooling gel to the outside of your boat, you will end up with a heavy boat with a non-durable shine.

Before you go to all that trouble and expense, try waxing your boat with a high Carnauba content product and buffing it out. Bowling alley wax is good, and available at the grocery store. If that shines up like you want, consider stopping there.

Even using some Armor All will give you a temporary glow.

Professional mold builders go to great lengths to make the inside of their production molds smooth, starting with the outside surface of the plug. You would be amazed how much work is involved to get the plug smooth and shiny. Lots of compounds and fillers are applied, smoothed, and polished. Special waxes add to the glow of the plug before molding.

Take a tour through John Sweets mold and plug preparation supply catalog on his website. Then read up on how each product is used in the plug/mold building process. The detail and care used to make "factory finishes" is simply amazing.

Preparing the inside of the mold to give the boats that nice factory finish involves wet sanding the tooling gel coat to 1200 grit or more. That polished mold surface is needed to transfer the shine to the boats that are pulled from the mold.

Once the river has dulled the surface, I don't think you are going to be able to restore it without using a painting process. For all the work it is going to involve, you might as well build a new boat from a quality mold.

OK, dosn't look like I'll get a "factory" finish, no big deal. I've allready stripped alot of the gelcoat off the boat (thick stuff). I'll try the marine paint you suggested clt_capt. How thick would you think that it would need to be (5 coats hull)? As for the deck, I have access to a sprayer and someone that could helpm so hopefully if we take our time it may turn out good. What would you guys recomend to smooth out or fill in any small depresions in the hull. Should I just use strips of fiberglass or is there something like a putty that would work for filling them in?