Porous gelcoat

[Alan Power]

The gelcoat on the hull of my boat had been pained over by the previous owner, as it had become chalky and porous.
First question, will this slow me down?
Also I would like to refinish the hull with a gelcoat finish rather than paint. Has anyone any suggestions to restore the gelcoat shine and remove the chalky texture?

Thanks; Alan.
:)

[Techno]

It's been posted a few times using a fine sandpaper then compounding to bring back gelcoat. But if it's been painted it might not work as usually the gel was painted since it was shot.
It's kind of like coran counter stuff, you can sand through the bad outer layer to make a new finish but if it's all broken up and cracked...

You can gel your self but what I've seen posted it's difficult to do without knowing exactly how. Not like paint. It's not impossible to do you just have to ask all your questions before you start doing it.

There are a few excellent paints people have mentioned, Awl grip? and some aircarft stuff I forgot.

[bulldogdaddy]

i'm doing the same thing with my boat. had an original gel-metalflake combo. they tried to cover up stress crack damage with more gel and paint. so i started with a marine paint remover to get off the paint ,now alot of block sanding and crack repairs i have to do.i'll post some pics tomorrow of my progress. and believe me it doesn't look good yet. but i'm going to go with house of kolors paint on it. had a few ppl say as long as it's preped right it's a good paint. awesome colors

[bulldogdaddy]

techno is the master guru:D how ya been techno?

[Techno]

I'm not much xperienced on making the gel look good unless it's already salvagable. (minor chalking).

I'm using HOK on mine but got stopped by cold weather Just the bottom done. Kandy paint is pretty easy to do as long as the section are small, doesn't seem too bad even if big but did have a terrrible sag on one part.
I'll find out this spring how bad larger sections are. The plan is to paint the dash red Kandy and then all the aluminum parts red kandy but a darker hue, or lighter. Red on Red.
Mmmmmmmmm. Polished aluminum.
http://members.lycos.co.uk/technostv/hpbimg/d2.jpg

Just imagine- all this work and it's under water!
http://members.lycos.co.uk/technostv/hpbimg/d1.jpg

[bulldogdaddy]

but you'll know it's there! plus will look great getting to the water. nice job!