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by Bill Basler » Wed Oct 21, 2009 10:28 pm
Jerry, good question. When your boat was built at the factory, it was laid up inside a mold. Gelcoat works great this way. As long as the mold is flawless, and properly prepared, the technician applying the gelcoat does not have to worry about smoothness of the gelcoat as such, but rather how thick the gelcoat is, and how evenly it is applied, given the desired mil thickness. A new boat gets most of it's perfect finish from the mold itself. The gelocat is the first layer down inside the mold, followed by special fiberglass cloths that prevent print-through, then other clothes—roving, strand or chop that give the hull thickness and strength.
If everything goes according to plan, the hull is popped out of the mold, the outermost surface of the gel is now revealed. Ideally it is perfect. Sometimes it will have some flaws—ie: pinholes, etc that need to be addressed. Your hull is then polished using buffers and wax.
In a regelcoat situation, there are some challenges/disadvantages. One, is that you are spraying gelcoat to the outside surface of your boat rather than inside a mold. As such, the sprayed gelcoat will not be perfect. It is called gelcoat, because it is really thick...like...a...gel. It is sprayed on using special sprayers that are designed to deal with the high viscosity. Generally speaking gelcoat does not flow like paint. In fact it pretty much cures, just like it is sprayed. A good technician with great spray equipment can get it to lay down better than an average technician with a "garden sprayer." Even so, gelcoat that is sprayed in this manner will have a heavy orange peel.
The only way to get it right is to let the gelcoat cure, then attack it by wet sanding with heavy to ultra fine grits, then finishing with a buffer and compound. It is a LOT of work.
This is the real reason that regelcoating is so expensive. There is a lot of finessing to get it to look factory original or better.
Much like painting your hull there are a few things to consider. Are you doing just the hull sides to the rubrail? Or, are you doing the bottom as well? Are you doing the decks? How many hatches, inside recesses are there to deal with? Is there non-skid that has to be protected/preserved or recreated?
All of these issues will drive your cost up. Gelcoating is darn expensive. To give you an idea, I had the Blue Bomb quoted. The lowest quote came in at about $17,000.00 with minor fiberglass repair. The estimates went up from there with the highest at about $25,000.00. I had to back down on my dream of having her redone.
As for prep, you will need to have the existing gelcoat taken down considerably...even removed entirely. Many will tell you the only way to get a job that will last is to blast the existing gelcoat down to the glass. Old gelcoat tends to develop microscopic spider cracks pinholes, and porosity. All of these will telegraph through your new gelcoat if the prep work is not handled correctly.
It's a big messy job. If it were me, I would only do it to a totally stripped hull. Also, since gelcoat lays down thick, as compared to paint, there is really no realistic way to mask around chrome, etc. It need to all come off. You will need your hull to be big wide open expanses of gel, so that you can block sand it, wet, and then buff it out.
My two cents.
Bill Basler
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