Blue Blue Hull Stripe Replacement - Gelcoat faded

[corinthmistral]

Hi all
The blue style stripe on my Dutch Friendship 35 (stripe is about 5" deep, at the top of the hull, similar to that on a Hallberg Rassy / Westerly etc) has now gone dull. It's blue gelcoat, rather than a spray finish or stick on stripe. I have tried cutting it in with tcut / buffing paste etc and polishing it but it is now beyond remedying.
The boat is immaculate save as for the blue stripe, which looks tatty up close, so I am keen to fix this. I am tempted to stick a dark blue vinyl over the original stripe, which is part of the GRP moulding.
Has anyone done this themself? If so, where's the best place to buy the vinyl stripe, does it have to be a special type, how easy is it to afix and could I do this afloat on the pontoon?
I don,t mind paying someone to do this job (a days work max?) if it will ensure a good, air bubble free finish. Can anyone recommend someone or a yard on the East coast who has done this job for them already? Any idea what this will cost?
Many thanks!

 

[TiggerToo]

Hi all
The blue style stripe on my Dutch Friendship 35 (stripe is about 5" deep, at the top of the hull, similar to that on a Hallberg Rassy / Westerly etc) has now gone dull. It's blue gelcoat, rather than a spray finish or stick on stripe. I have tried cutting it in with tcut / buffing paste etc and polishing it but it is now beyond remedying.
The boat is immaculate save as for the blue stripe, which looks tatty up close, so I am keen to fix this. I am tempted to stick a dark blue vinyl over the original stripe, which is part of the GRP moulding.
Has anyone done this themself? If so, where's the best place to buy the vinyl stripe, does it have to be a special type, how easy is it to afix and could I do this afloat on the pontoon?
I don,t mind paying someone to do this job (a days work max?) if it will ensure a good, air bubble free finish. Can anyone recommend someone or a yard on the East coast who has done this job for them already? Any idea what this will cost?
Many thanks!

sticking on a vinyl strie is dead easy. There are lots of places you can buy them eg here: http://www.boatstripes.com.au/

Follow their instructions and you'll get it done in much less than a day. It will look good until you have a collision or a scrape. But it is equally easy and cheap to replace when needed (and they don't really fade)

 

[oldsaltoz]

Contact a few sign makers and tell them it will be in the sun all day, just don't mention marine or the price double.

Good luck.

 

[AliM]

Csail on this forum supplies vinyl to order - no connection, just a satisfied customer.

 

[tt65]

Hull stripe.

I had a similar problem on my Westerly with a Burgandy stripe, Fine gold line and Westerly Logo.

I removed the old gold ribbon with a scraper. I then used dry sandpaper to rub down the Burgandy, not too strongly though. Cleaned it all off with methylated spirits. Masked it up. Applied one coat of Burgandy Toplac. The result was brilliant. All done in a morning.

Few days later, I applied the replacement gold ribbon and gold logo which was dead easy.

The problems were: Being sure that I was working at a good comfortable height and that when painting or ribboning that I could do whole length without interruption.
Getting the gold ribbon on exactly parallel to rubbing strake.

The paint is quite dark and so the imperfections of my painting are never remarked on.

Boat is now 27 years old and this has been done twice over the years and only because of fading. I suspect trying to change the colour would be a whole different ball game.

 

[Nigel_Ward]

I think that narrow stripes are relatively easy, but wide stripes round the compound shape of the hull would be much harder. It is also hard to get the stripes correct round the stem.

Having done both striping and two pack polyurethane painting, I would go for the paint. Get a quality fine line masking tape and remove before the paint sets.

 

[Clive]

Have you tried using the coloured "T" cut. I have 3 blue stripes on my white hull. just mask off the area you want to restore and use "colour magic", allow to dry and then polish off, keeps the blue stripes blue.