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Author Topic:   Sanding and finishing

Nauti dog posted 01-14-2014 11:18 AM ET (US)
I'm getting started on the sanding and buffing of my new (1972) boston whaler. I'm confident the foam filler is dry, boat seems light and I pulled the drain tubes to let any water out and feel the wood around drain tube is in good shape. Now I'm getting started on sanding the boat, I started with a 4 inch surface grinder but found that's a bit aggressive and bought a 1/3 sheet orbital grinder and hope that will work a little better. My plan is to grind out all surface cracks and leave as much gel coat as possible. My original plan was to regel coat the boat but read many prior discussions and that may be more work then I want to do. So the new plan is to chase any cracks with a Drexel type tool but I don't know how much of the gel coat I should grind out. I have a 3m premium surface filler for all the cracks and will fair out all the holes. How do I finish if I dint gel coat, do I paint it or should I go with original plan of re gel coating entire boat.
dg22 posted 01-14-2014 03:13 PM ET (US)
My first time at it, I just sanded and filled with 3M premium filler but the bigger spider cracks came back so I sanded those bad areas down to the fiberglass and re-painted and all is good. I don't have experience with gel coat and my budget was small so I decided to paint. Before painting, get your surface as smooth as possible. After filling and sanding, I used a high build primer and then sanded like crazy to get a very smooth surface for painting. I read somewhere to not worry if you sand off much of the primer as the important thing is it fills in all the imperfections. After, I still went around with some spot putty in the areas I missed. Best of luck.

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Author	Topic: Sanding and finishing
Nauti dog	posted 01-14-2014 11:18 AM ET (US) I'm getting started on the sanding and buffing of my new (1972) boston whaler. I'm confident the foam filler is dry, boat seems light and I pulled the drain tubes to let any water out and feel the wood around drain tube is in good shape. Now I'm getting started on sanding the boat, I started with a 4 inch surface grinder but found that's a bit aggressive and bought a 1/3 sheet orbital grinder and hope that will work a little better. My plan is to grind out all surface cracks and leave as much gel coat as possible. My original plan was to regel coat the boat but read many prior discussions and that may be more work then I want to do. So the new plan is to chase any cracks with a Drexel type tool but I don't know how much of the gel coat I should grind out. I have a 3m premium surface filler for all the cracks and will fair out all the holes. How do I finish if I dint gel coat, do I paint it or should I go with original plan of re gel coating entire boat.
dg22	posted 01-14-2014 03:13 PM ET (US) My first time at it, I just sanded and filled with 3M premium filler but the bigger spider cracks came back so I sanded those bad areas down to the fiberglass and re-painted and all is good. I don't have experience with gel coat and my budget was small so I decided to paint. Before painting, get your surface as smooth as possible. After filling and sanding, I used a high build primer and then sanded like crazy to get a very smooth surface for painting. I read somewhere to not worry if you sand off much of the primer as the important thing is it fills in all the imperfections. After, I still went around with some spot putty in the areas I missed. Best of luck.