Can a painted hull be buffed/polished the same as gelcoat hull

Depends on the paint. Single pot does not respond well to polish - easier to flat it down and give it a new topcoat. Two pot polyurethane may respond to buffing.
 
Apologies for thread Drift
Ive often wondered why so many paint over a gelcoat. Is it a feasible option to instead remove paint and restore original gelcoat ?.

Steveeeasy
 
steveeasy said:
Apologies for thread Drift
Ive often wondered why so many paint over a gelcoat. Is it a feasible option to instead remove paint and restore original gelcoat ?.

Steveeeasy
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It seems to become increasingly difficult to re-polish the gelcoat as it gets older, in particular some deeper colours. Eventually painting becomes an attractive option, but I would guess it should be possible to cut back and re-polish a white hull until the gelcoat wears through.

The feasibility of removing paint and repolishing will depend upon the type of paint and the condition of the gelcoat. A two pack polyurethane paint will be very difficult, if not impossible, to remove. Even single pack polyurethane is somewhat resistant to chemical paint strippers.

The paint may of course have been applied to hide a poor or badly mis-colour matched repair. It would be very unfortunate to go through all the troubles of removing paint only to discover that repainting is the only sensible option
 
steveeasy said:
Apologies for thread Drift
Ive often wondered why so many paint over a gelcoat. Is it a feasible option to instead remove paint and restore original gelcoat ?.

Steveeeasy
Click to expand...

I have seen a 38 foot boat re-gelcoated as a DIY project by a couple. Done in Greece, so no weather or temperature issues. It was a long, tedious job but not technically difficut. Took them about two months.
 
You can polish any paint - be it a single stage colour or clear coated. Results wil vary depending on how thick the paint or lacquer is and how much you can take off. Some sealants and waxes contain fillers to help promote shine but aren't a permanent solution.

Gelcoat becomes porous over time and reaches a point where you can no longer polish it. You can paint over getcoat - typically to professionally paint a 30ft hull in Awlgrip is around £5k.
 
DrSpock said:
You can polish any paint - be it a single stage colour or clear coated. Results wil vary depending on how thick the paint or lacquer is and how much you can take off. Some sealants and waxes contain fillers to help promote shine but aren't a permanent solution.
Click to expand...

You could polish any paint, as in put some wax on it, but you cannot buff any paint.

Gelcoat becomes porous over time and reaches a point where you can no longer polish it. You can paint over getcoat - typically to professionally paint a 30ft hull in Awlgrip is around £5k.
Click to expand...

My 35 year old gelcoat can still be buffed and/or polished. There are lots of shiny boats around the marina that are as old or older than mine.
 
I sincerely hope a painted boat can be polished and buffed, because when I'm finished my current task of "hot air" strip, damage-repair, filling 'n' fairing, epoxy priming (3 coats), more filling 'n' fairing, sanding-off with RO sander and wet 'n' dry, 2 undercoats (plus sanding-off) I have already notched-up 100 hours of work. I still have another undercoat and then three top-coats to do.
So there is no way I'm going to let this lot deteriorate, or EVER undertake the task again :hororr:

As I said first above, I sincerely hope polishing and buffing is effective!
 
PaulRainbow said:
You could polish any paint, as in put some wax on it, but you cannot buff any paint.
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Polish does not mean waxing - waxing means waxing. Polishing means abrading the paint to reveal a new surface - and that can be done on any paint.

PaulRainbow said:
My 35 year old gelcoat can still be buffed and/or polished. There are lots of shiny boats around the marina that are as old or older than mine.
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I'm sure it can but it will not be anywhere near as good as new gelcoat which is why a lot of modern boats are painted instead.
 
Two-pack is superior to gelcoat as it never chalks. It can be cut and polished to a mirror-like shine. Single pack paints will burn if polished in the same way as two-pack. Toplac may be better but it is a rubbish paint anyway as it is as difficult to apply as two-pack.
 
Two-pack and two stage are different things. Two-pack (2k) requires a hardener to chemically harden the paint. Two stage means using a base coat and a clear coat - of which either can be water base, solvent base, single or 2k.

It doesn't matter if the paint or lacquer is acrylic, polyurethane, epoxy, cellulose etc they can all be polished.
 
You might be able to polish it to put a coating on an already good finish, but buffing it with any kind of abrasive polish or heat producing method may not work.
 
PCUK said:
Quite right, it won't. Not to any useful point.
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That's nonsense.

How you polish is irrelevant - the fact you can polish is. Polishing compund is just an abrasive material sometimes diminishing suspended in a solution for delivery. If a material surface can become smoother by mechanical abrading then you can polish it - be it metal, glass, plastic, paint or gelcoat.
 
DrSpock said:
Polish does not mean waxing - waxing means waxing. Polishing means abrading the paint to reveal a new surface - and that can be done on any paint.



I'm sure it can but it will not be anywhere near as good as new gelcoat which is why a lot of modern boats are painted instead.
Click to expand...

Really ?

As for buffing, you cannot buff all paints and hope to finish up with anything remotely resembling a shine. This has always been the case, even with automotive paints. For instance, if you go anywhere near the old synthetic paints they used to use on cars with anything remotely abrasive it will go matt. Put a polisher near it and you'll have a big molten mess.
 
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