Refinish

So I bought an old coronado 25 sail boat that needs a lot of love. the most important part of the boat that needs attention is the fiberglass. it has two spots in the fiberglass on the top half that need repair. Nothing too serious just lets in rain water. I have never used gel coat before but I have made quite a few parts for my motorcycle with fiberglass. My question is, do you have to spray gel coat? I do not have the tools or the facilities for spraying but know it has to be coated in someway. Also I would like to refinish the whole top half of the boat without having to spray anything. Is there anyway around spraying and what would be your suggestions?

 

Paint is your best option, rather then gel coat. I've seen very few back yard gel coat jobs that turned out well. Paint is a much easier set of techniques to get a handle on, particularly in the "primitive" conditions, usually found in a driveway repair job. A solvent base LPU is the best, though costly and also the hardest to apply. A single part polyurethane would be next on the list, which is considerably cheaper and much easy to work with, next would be the WR-LPU's, the water based polyurethanes, which I dislike quite a bit, but some have had good success with. The nice thing about paint is you can match anything and the prep is straight forward.

 

thanks I will keep this in mind. I've been using the internet to find different processes I just wanted an opinion from those with plenty of experience.