Gelcoat vs Paint

[Ceirwan]

Out of interest, has anyone tried Farecla's marine range of compounds and polishes?

On their website they actually list G3 as an automotive polish.
I've been using G3 for years as well, so I know it works well, and usually I get the same as I know it works.


But they do market a specific marine line of polishes & waxes, the profile 350 looks to the one we'd use.

 

[Minerva]

Before doing anything wash it with fairy liquid and then wipe it down with meths on a rag. This will get rid of old wax and other detritus which often makes gel coat look chalky. In many instances it’s not and a good clean followed by a wax will do wonders. UV damaged wax is hard to remove so definitely don’t skip the meths and whatever you do don’t use acetone if you can avoid it.
Pretty much any polishing compound will do a reasonable job, just make sure you wet the foam disc first and you may want to use string and a milk bottle with water in as a counterweight over the guard wires. This allows you to work longer which will produce better results.

Very much this!

However I am of the understanding that acetone will not damage GRP / Gel Coat so not sure why you avoid it so? Unless it’s ’cause It’s orrible stuff if it gets on your skin?

 

[lustyd]

acetone will not damage GRP / Gel Coat so not sure why you avoid it so? Unless it’s ’cause It’s orrible stuff if it gets on your skin?

Acetone does soften gelcoat a bit so best avoided for longevity. It also destroys various other things like fenders or rubber rubbing strips so you need to be more careful. For a bad stain I would use it but if alcohol does the job then best to use that.
Then there’s the danger that acetone covered rags sometimes just catch fire by themselves

 

[doug748]

Unless you actually know of a respray that has failed I suggest you are being too dogmatic. Going back to the1987 storm our Hunter was capsized and scraped along the Deben mud, thetopside looked as though it had been attacked with coarse wirewool. The respray used Blakes (now Hempel) paint as the nearest to the original Hunter blue many will recall and was brilliant. After we sold her we sometimes saw her sailing on the East coast 25 years later still in the same paint job looking much brighter than her stablemates in the gelcoat.
A good example of the toughness of the coating was when a much larger yacht was swung around in a lock in Holland by the wash of a barge's prop and scraped her sugar scoop stern along our topside. I looked down horrified to see a white powdered "scar" across our paint job. A minute with a cloth revealed that this was from the Dutchman's gelcoat and our respray was unmarked.

Sprayed paint systems can be excellent indeed but I would never consider one for an undamaged hull - in white. I agree accident damage is a different case.

Dark coloured hulls can reach a stage where they look very poor. resprays look magnificent but begin to lose their lustre and pick up abrasion and scratches over the years and you are back to square one eventually. This ageing tends not to show so badly on white hulls.
Once you are into quality resprays on coloured hulls, it might be a rare outlay but when it comes it is as expensive as a new engine.

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