Paint or not to paint?

[ghost0070]

2002 boat with chalky faded gel coat. It is better to wax and compound , or bite the bullet and paint?

Thank in advance.

 

[RT Firefly]

greetings,
Mr. g. Compound a wax a small section. If you're happy with the results, there's your answer. A re-paint is a BIG job. You might consider one of the stick on film coatings (sorta like Mac-tac).

 

[Vashon_Trawler]

I have seen miracles performed with chalky faded gelcoat. The hull, topside, and decks of my boat are Awlgrip. It requires special care such as using Awlwash and not polishing, but the paint has held up well against the Florida sun--very durable. I am having the hull repainted after the PO did it a little over 10 years ago.

 

[sean9c]

Always try all options to save your gelcoat before deciding to paint. Even the toughest LP paints won't be as durable as gelcoat. If you are talking about the AT34 I would think it highly likely that the gelcoat can be brought back. Though for the best results it might have to be done by a pro.

 

[Comodave]

We painted our boat last year, did all of the prep work and had a pro spray it. It was a huge job but it looks beautiful. Our boat’s PO was a charter member of the Coalition of the Docking Impaired so there were many areas that I repaired so we had to paint. I probably did fiberglass work in over 75 places on the hull. If you can restore the gel coat that is what I would do. The painter said if he had done all the work including what I did he would have charged in excess of $25K. As it was it cost $980 to get him to spray it plus the materials of about $2500.