Lee, can you elaborate on what you did?

I'm weighting options about giving Undecided a face lift.

I had a local marine paint shop repaint it with PPG. They redid the no-skid and decks as well. It looks like it just came from the factory. The color came in just a tad lighter than I had hoped for but it looks awesome. I also had them lay up the rear beam beds with carbon since this was a common failure point for these boats with a lot of distance racing on them. They then bedded the beams, let it set, removed them, then painted it.

If you plan on doing your own repairs, gel coat is easier if you don't know how to shoot paint. I just re-did an A cat that had a bad paint job ,long board faired, primed and had a buddy shoot it.I had some issues with the paint and some with my driving ,so learned how to shoot the repairs myself. Take my word for it , when it is all said and done gelcoat is easier to apply but requires maintenance. Paint is a pain but holds up longer without as much maintenance.

I had gelcoat work done to it a while ago... its not exactly great looking these days.

I'm just trying to get options together for costs. Not likely that the wife will let me sell her so I got to do something about her looks. She's beyond what a good rubbing compound and buffing can accomplish.

"Not likely that the wife will let me sell her so I got to do something about her looks."

You might want to rewrite that... jus' sayin'.

Why?

Its the truth.


edit: I see what you're saying.

"Its not likely that the wife will let me sell the boat...."

Have you tried Newglass2? If you just have old dull gelcoat this stuff really works. I scrub the boat well with comet cleanser(gets rid of stains and removes oxidation). Rinse, dry, and apply about 5 coats. Just wipe it on. I do this at the beginning of each year and the boat looks like new. This stuff will seal the gelcoat to help prevent further stains. It is about 40 dollars a bottle and I can redo the boat about 4 times with each bottle. If you have repairs to cover this will not work but if it is just old looking gelcoat give it a try.
http://www.newglass2.com/cgi-bin/cp-app.cgi

Yeah I had a bottom job done about 4 years ago where the gelcoat never really kicked.

Plus some patches that are just ugly... some nonskid stains that I can't get out...

Nose repair gelcoat is flaking off... I'm just at wits end with it and want to get it taken care of so I can just forget about it.

great product for adding shine and luster to old gelcoat but does not hold up to fl sun and saltwater. I have used the product for the past 2 years and it requires semi frequent re-coating. not that hard to do, but if adding 4-6 layers of product every 4 months gets old too.

I decided that the N20 was and still is such a fantastic boat and knew I'd regret selling it, so that's why I dumped some money into it to make me happier about keeping it. Whatever my next boat ends up being...I'm going to sand down the gel coat and have it painted.

Lee, what was the aprox total cost (for paint alone) to get you cat done.

was that rate discounted at all?

It would also be fair to say you use your boat much more than the average person and can because of the weather here. For someone in the northern regions where they may get only 6 months to sail and doesn't want to refinish their boat and wants a shine that keeps the stain away the polymer products are good.

One thing about the polymer stuff, like paint unless you apply it in a paint booth stuff in the air will get into it. After the last coat rub it lightly with a clay bar to get a smooth surface.

I don't know what the break down was for the paint. Overall cost to have it done was $3400.

sounds about what i would expect
thanks

Interesting - which color is flaking off? The white I sprayed on there had duratec additive (I didn't do the yellow).

My 2 cents:
I refinished the dagger and rudder on my F31 a couple years ago and used interlux perfection which is a 2 part polyurethane paint. Not too hard to get a good finish (I rolled and tipped) but the real problem is dings. You can't simply "re-touch" with this paint. I think Jake alluded to this in one of his responses. I found a work around- fill with filler, sand gently then feather the area with gloss enamel spray paint. This is on the rudder which doesn't stay in the water full time. Yes, not very elegant and seems stupid after all the effort of the perfection, but it works and beats the hell out of dealing with those toxic fumes again. If I have to redo the rudder again, I really might just use the enamel spray paint!!!

I was on the Awlgrip site and read about the Awlcract 2000. Seems like a pretty good product. One thing I like about it in the instructions you apply coat after coat without sanding inbetween as long as they are done in a specified time limit. With all of the Interlux products its says to coat, cure, sand, repeat.
Does anyone know rather or not you can do a repair with the Awlcraft 2000 by feathering, spraying, sanding, and buffing to blend in the repair? My hope is not to ever redo this boat again but to only make repairs and redo the bottom as necessary.

spraying might work, but I wasn't interested in spraying it as I don't have a good enough ventilation system to deal with the isocyanates in the paint

Look into Alexseal. Same guy who invented Awlgrip products after his no compete clause ran out, when he sold Awlgrip to Interlux. He took everything he learned in the meantime and applied it to Alexseal. It's repairable.

An acrylic paint like AwlCraft or AlexSeal will allow you to repair the coating without too much difficulty and without swirl marks. As stated previously in some posts the true poly-urethanes like AwlGrip are nearly impossible to repair without swirl marks because of the "shell" that they have on the outside of the finish when they cure.

A product to consider, especially for rudders and boards, is Interlux Performance Epoxy. Its a really tough epoxy paint with teflon additive. Wet sands to a very slippery finish, can be repaired easily. Buffs out to a pretty nice shine, though not as shiny as a topcoat paint. Basically it gets you the repairability of gelcoat with the hardness of epoxy. Great stuff. If I re-finished my boat thats what I'd use.