gelcoat

[Jorge]

Hellow everyone I need all of you out ther help. Im working on my 1957 costom line larson. dont try to find it you wont find one. I try for so long I dont look any more. Ok what i need is we need to paint the hole thing we are all the way into the bare wood. we need all the tip s in geal coat we can get i read some but is not in wood is it the same in wood as in anything ealse?
is it better to take nail s out and replace it with screws??
im not a painter or carpenter so i think im in big truble but we can do it but we want to do the rght way and thats where u all come in. any help you can give us will be nice .........thanks u all ( us is me and my brother randy )
ps if any one can find a custom line larson 1957 pls let me know the web page you found it.
Jorge

[FRPWoody]

Jorge, Gelcoat probably is not what you're after. It is designed for the use with fiberglass reinforced plastics. Yes it is a very durable finnish, but it has its limits. One of those limits is that it needs a dimensionaly stable substraight. Wood is not in this catagory. Another inherent problem is the application process in which you would suffer in order to achive an exceptable finnish. Not very user freindly stuff. Good old marine paint or spar varnish may be just the ticket for this project. More questions for you... what kind of wood? Plywood or plank? What shape is the wood in? FRP.

[PAR]

Gel coat isn't as durable as some of the high performance paints now available. It's used in production boats because of it's compatibility with their molding processes.

Wood needs to be painted. The paint choices range from the cheap porch and deck acrylic from Wal-Mart to the two part linear polyurethanes. The best is the two part polyurethane, followed by the epoxies, then the modified enamels, next the regular enamels (oil based) which is my recommendation and lastly the acrylics (latex) which most wouldn't recommend for the marine environment unless it's a work boat and looks aren't so important.

A boat that age deserves a nice paint job, so spend the bucks on a good quality marine enamel. If it's a trailer carried boat, then oil based house paint can get you through, but isn't as tough.

With paint, you generally get what you pay for. I've bought paint that cost several hundred dollars a gallon and it was hard, fancy stuff, but unacceptable for a wooden boat.

[cyclops]

PAR. Is Helmsman type of spar varnish a good covering, for a 18' plywood, 5.0L V8, of 50 mph?

[Jorge]

WOODY: It's plywood and its on grat shape.

[Jorge]

PAR What paint would you use?

[FRPWoody]

Jorge, Glad to hear the ply is in good condition. Not so fortunate in my project. Having to replace most of the deck. I'm using oil based paint to cover the oak deck frames. I have not yet replaced the deck planks. FRPWoody

[PAR]

Cyclops, don't get me started. If this is your boat then I recommend at least 14 coats of Helmsman Spar Vanish, with hand rubbing (2800 grit) between each coat. Can you keep paint on your 302 powered 18 footer?

Jorge, if your plywood is in great shape, you should try to keep it that way with the best paint you can afford (you will not find it a Wal-Mart, trust me)

Paint is only as good as the surface prep, in fact painting is over 80% surface prep and the rest is the actual brushing on some color time. Don't try to sand it down to bare wood. There's a good likelihood that you have Douglas fir plywood on your boat and it will just turn into a washboard if sanded bare. Knock down the oxidized outer layer(s) of paint and get it smooth. If you do get into some bare wood (it happens) prime the crap out of it, sand lightly after each of the minimum 3 primer coats (4 is better) then continue with the smoothing process.

Since your boat is pretty old, it will have oil based paint on it. Don't even think about acrylic (latex) it's only good for your living room walls. There are many brands of marine grade oil paints from several manufactures. I've used most of them and they all have good points and bad. One of the bad points is the cost, which seem to be much higher then regular oil based, exterior house paint. For the underwater areas, use a marine paint, (it shouldn't be bottom paint if the boat is trailered) the best you can get. For those areas that will not get good and soaked, you can try and get away with an oil based house paint to save some money. Honestly though, with the size of this boat, you don't need all that much paint, so get the good stuff.

Interlux, Pettit and Z-Spar are the bigger manufactures of marine paint and all have good products. They have several different types of oil and paint products. You may want to log onto their web sites and try to sort out what they recommend, in your price range. Keep it simple, they also have some pretty fancy paints available, don't buy into the advertising hype, just get some good oil paint.

[Jorge]

OK think i got what I need at least to get me go ing i will get back to you guys if i get in truble im very good at that. and agian thanks to all of you for your help
Jorge