Suggestions old hull, stained clear coat.

Hi,

Apologies if this is posted in the wrong area. I'm new around here.

Can anyone provide me with a bit of advice. I have an early 1970s 505 class sailboat. It has a wood deck with a fiberglass hull. The bright work has been refinished. The urethane or clear coat used on the wood has dripped onto the fiberglass clear coat. So the fiberglass hull has yellow dribble stains in the clearcoat.

Any thoughts on how to "fix" this? Would I need to sand down the entire hull and repaint, re-clearcoat? Could I spray over the top? LOL could I take it to Makko? And have them paint it there? Any help would be appreciated

 

How long since this happened ? It it is just a matter of a few days, it may still be soft enough to gently scrape off, using the type of scraper you drag, rather than push.

 

Very carefully heat the spots with a heat gun, to soften the varnish or polyurethane, then scrape the bulk of the spot off the 'glass. The 'glass portion of the hull doesn't have a clear coat, but a gelcoat finish. This can take a little heat if you keep it moving. Alternatively, you could carefully scrape the spots off, but you'll usually damage the gel coat, which if just slightly scratched or scuffed can be buffed out. Lastly a chemical stripper can be used. These can cause lots of damage quickly, so make sure it says fiberglass safe on the can. I'd use a Q-Tip and dot each spot with the stripper, let it work for a few minutes then wash it off. It might take a few applications, but it would come off clean eventually. In the end, regardless of method, you probably need to polish and buff the gel coat, to even things out and bring back the luster, assuming the gel coat has enough film thickness left to do this. If not, paint is the logical choice, though you could re-gel coat, which is difficult for the novice to get a reasonable job of it.