Restoring boat cant decide on paint or gelcoat

[northrivergeek]

Ive been restoring a 1987 Hydra-Sport Bass boat, all new stingers, transom, floors.. now getting down to just the cosmetic exterior issues..

But due to stress crack repairs, and some other issues encountered after getting top back on and splash well glassed in , I now have a good bit of exposed glass on the top of the cap rail.

I'm conflicted though now on what to do to the top cap !?!?! I was gonna just sand , fair, sand, fair, and sand, epoxy , primer , then urethane automotive paint, then 2k high solids clear coat, wet sand, and shoot another clear.

BUT .. now that I have sooo much exposed bare glass .. I'm thing I really need to re gel coat the top instead of messing with paint at all, it will last much longer and take my abuse much better.. I just cant decide.. I really wana get this boat in water .. but at the same time I don't want to have to do it again anytime soon ..

Ive never done a whole top before with gel, but have done patch work, guess its the same principal have read a good bit on re-gel coating a boat, I know what to do .. but most of those examples were boat bottoms, not tops with all the angles, hatch holes ,and curves etc etc its goona be a real pain in the butt to try and sand the whole top cap, enough to spray gelcoat over whole cap.

I could try to blend in the patch areas and just wet sand and buff the old.
But its black with silver flake on top, Id really rather have it all white on top with no flake, just because white seems to hold up better over time, and easy to patch in future! or just back to black and flake since its already that way.

Can I blend the old an new gel coat .. without issues ? feather the new into the old, like auto paint, or will I need to sand any area of old gel coat so that new wont peel, or crack? Just trying to figure out how save as much existing gel coat as I can, a lot of the interior gel is smooth and a little buff will bring it back.. but one area is a problem and will need to blend or something .. HELP!

I know this is complicated and hard to explain here .. but Im trying

Here are pics of issues





ANy help with this delema would be appreciated !

[Commuter Boats]

My experience would suggest, prime and paint would yield a more satisfactory finish in less time.

[gamecock413]

epoxy paint is tougher than gelcoat too

[PAR]

Solvent based LPU paint is the way to go. Epoxy paint will chalk up in a few years.

[ondarvr]

I'm with them, paint it, its much easier.

there's no way to blend into that gel coat with new product, you'd need to refinish the entire thing. Gel coating it in white would be bad enough, doing it in metal flake would be a nightmare.

Clears tend to yellow with time, over dark colors you won't notice it much, but over white it can become very noticeable and the thicker the clear, the yellower it will get.