Hallberg rassy hull stripe. 2 pack? or flowcoat?

contessaman

contessaman

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So, the original blue gelcoat stripe is faded and worn through to the white below in places.

I guess the standard approach would be to re do it in 2 pack paint..

However, a while ago I helped my father in law with his little faded blue river boat. The poorly made deck had worn through to the laminate in places. with nothing to loose I ordered some clear flowcoat and pigments. I mixed up a match, roller'd it on like paint and after it set, sanded then machine polished it. I Surprised myself with the excellent finish that still looks as good now as when I did it some years ago. I was very careful to prepare the surface well and degrease with acetone.

This throws a cat amongst the pigeons. Perhaps I should try flow coating the blue stripe on my boat. Obviously with a rassy the stakes are higher if it looked sh*t. On the other hand, gelcoat IS the best finish for GRP.

thoughts? similar experiences?

cheers all

CM
 
I had mine sprayed with 2 pack. I chose Awlgrip 2000 - some people don't like it, but it has the great advantage of being able to be touched in if required. There's a standard Awlgrip colour which is a perfect match for the HR blue.
 
Winter 13-14 I helped my neighbour paint the multiple hull stripes on his X yacht with two pack, the usual two man roller and tipping off brush job, the finish looked as good as new and after a years cruising, racing and fender abrasion looks as well as when it went on. The boot top on my Sigma 38 was red two pack and was good for around 10-15 years without fading. If you value durability it is the way to go.
It is not much more difficult to apply though you need to be choosier about the weather and over its lifetime the extra cost is negligible. I have only ever applied white flowcoat inside lockers and hidden areas where a little unevenness was acceptable, I think it might take considerable skill to achieve the appearance you can get with two pack on vertical surfaces because flowcoat is so much thicker.

BTW
In almost all the two pack jobs I have done with careful preparation, the finish after the first coat was glossier and smoother than the second, if you are covering like for like, one coat might be enough.
 
Similar problem with faded red stripes on our Najad.
I did a terrible job of painting the red stripes with 2 pack.
I then paid to have it redone professionally (Desty Marine) who did an excellent job. They sprayed Awlgrip.
 
CM,

You sound very capable of either, but the challenge with replacing with gelcoat is in the thickness, you would have to apply a sufficient amount in order to profile down for a good finish, but not too much that it didn't appear inconsistent or too raised with the surrounding gel. A challenge indeed!

Paint will uniform better and allow you to roll and tip or possbly spray if you have the equipment a relatively thin layer, so I think paint would be the better option. Awlgrip has the edge on gelcoat also for durability, so as it would be thin you would want the strongest most durable option.
Not to say it's not possible with gel as it is, but even HR's first stripe has worn probably due to the above.

Tony
 
thanks for all the quick replies guys.

I was always of the opinion that gelcoat / flowcoat was harder wearing than even two pack paint but perhaps I am wrong in saying so? It may well have worn through now but what was there hasn't done a bad job since its 34 years old! As i'm sure owners of similar boats will agree it seems to be an area that takes a lot of wear with fenders etc.

Certainly if I was paying a professional to do it spraying with awlgrip would seem to be the way forward. I don't have spraying equipment of my own although through my other hobby of diving an over-pressure breathing system for me wouldn't be two difficult to rig up.

Part of the reason I was thinking of flow coat is that for the 'one off' job that this is to me, It might be labour intensive but a decent finish should be achievable by putting on an excess thickness, sanding it back through progressively finer grits of sand paper then finally machine polishing.

I guess the question is can I do the same with 2 pack paint? and if I'm going through all that effort will it be as hard wearing as gelcoat / flow coat?

I will naturally take out all the windows that are mounted in this topside stripe. cant wait for that.. :(

If I could afford a professional awlgrip respray I would. but I cant. I'm just worried about doing a really **** job of roller'd 2 pack painting...

One thing, there is a similar stripe on the breakwater that the fixed windscreen is on. I guess this is a smaller area that lends itself to practising on first....
 
Slathering on gelcoat, then polishing it back to a nice finish sounds unlikely to work well.
You will need it to be thick enough to be properly opaque, all over, polish it away too much at the edge and start again?
And all that cutting and polishing might well stain the rest of the topsides if the new gel is not allowed to cure for a long old time?
I know pro places re-gel whole hulls, but I suspect they don't rely on that much polishing or cutting back?

I'm not great at painting, but a stripe is a well contained area to work with.
With practice, International 2 pack can give an excellent finish when I brush it on, I've used it for dinghy rudders among other things.
Two tips:
1) practice on something smallish
2) use syringes to measure the paint accurately and only mix what you need

3rd tip for free, buy a nice brush.

I used to have a fairly old boat with a 10 year old stripe in 2-pack, it was better than the gel coat, except where scratched right through.
 
3M make a vinyl stripe material called cast,looks exactly the same as gel coat.
Had a dark blue stripe about 8" deep done on mine 10 years ago,just stating to fade off now.
Any sign writing company can do it.
 
contessaman said:
So, the original blue gelcoat stripe is faded and worn through to the white below in places.

I guess the standard approach would be to re do it in 2 pack paint..

However, a while ago I helped my father in law with his little faded blue river boat. The poorly made deck had worn through to the laminate in places. with nothing to loose I ordered some clear flowcoat and pigments. I mixed up a match, roller'd it on like paint and after it set, sanded then machine polished it. I Surprised myself with the excellent finish that still looks as good now as when I did it some years ago. I was very careful to prepare the surface well and degrease with acetone.

This throws a cat amongst the pigeons. Perhaps I should try flow coating the blue stripe on my boat. Obviously with a rassy the stakes are higher if it looked sh*t. On the other hand, gelcoat IS the best finish for GRP.

thoughts? similar experiences?

cheers all

CM
Click to expand...

I heard HR use this like a tyre wear indicator, it means you need a new boat, the old one is worn out. :encouragement:
 
prof pat pending said:
Have a look at this thread :)
http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?398849-It-s-a-wrap-!&highlight=
Click to expand...

very impressive indeed. but surely it wouldn't take much wear from fenders and the like to chafe through. then there will be a mirror gloss finish next to a huge chafe. gelcoat and paint will fade a bit in the sun as it picks up the knocks over time and wont notice so much. plus both are easy to touch up....

still very impressed with all those compound curves though!
 
There's a Hallberg Rassy 38 in the next berth to mine. It had the blue stripe brush-painted a few years ago, but not very well and unfortunately in the wrong shade of blue, with visible brush marks. It sounds silly, but getting the right shade of blue is vital if you want the finished job to look right. The gelcoat HR use for the blue stripe is Jotun 7163NGA, and if you hold an Awlgrip colour chart next to a newish HR you'll see that there's a colour which is an almost perfect match.

Spraying gives the best finish, but it's expensive as the mast needs to come off and the boat needs to go into a clean workshop. Then staging needs to be set up around it, so that the whole stripe can be sprayed in one go. Plus of course there's lots of rubbing down and masking to do - the hull ports were left on mine and simply masked off.

Unfortunately, Awlgrip 2000 can only be sprayed, but they have other paints which can be brush applied. I'd suggest you try various techniques to brush apply Awlgrip, and see whether you can get a finish you'd be happy with before you commit to doing the whole boat.

My motivation for getting the stripes sprayed was that I was planning to sell the boat within a few years. I had the stripes sprayed in 2011 as I needed to get the rigging replaced so the mast had to come off anyway. And I thought that a decent spray job would result in a good sale price for the boat. I sold her last year, and the paint job helped me achieve a top price, as well as making it much easier to sell!

This is what the stripes looked like when it came out of the paint shed...

Fslide1-4_zpsf4e65346.jpg
 
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contessaman said:
very impressive indeed. but surely it wouldn't take much wear from fenders and the like to chafe through. then there will be a mirror gloss finish next to a huge chafe. gelcoat and paint will fade a bit in the sun as it picks up the knocks over time and wont notice so much. plus both are easy to touch up....

still very impressed with all those compound curves though!
Click to expand...

That boat spent a season on the Thames before she was sold, still looking good as far as I know.
Might be worth dropping Boatone a line to see how he got on with it :)
 
pvb said:
There's a Hallberg Rassy 38 in the next berth to mine. It had the blue stripe brush-painted a few years ago, but not very well and unfortunately in the wrong shade of blue, with visible brush marks. It sounds silly, but getting the right shade of blue is vital if you want the finished job to look right. The gelcoat HR use for the blue stripe is Jotun 7163NGA, and if you hold an Awlgrip colour chart next to a newish HR you'll see that there's a colour which is an almost perfect match.

Spraying gives the best finish, but it's expensive as the mast needs to come off and the boat needs to go into a clean workshop. Then staging needs to be set up around it, so that the whole stripe can be sprayed in one go. Plus of course there's lots of rubbing down and masking to do - the hull ports were left on mine and simply masked off.

Unfortunately, Awlgrip 2000 can only be sprayed, but they have other paints which can be brush applied. I'd suggest you try various techniques to brush apply Awlgrip, and see whether you can get a finish you'd be happy with before you commit to doing the whole boat.

My motivation for getting the stripes sprayed was that I was planning to sell the boat within a few years. I had the stripes sprayed in 2011 as I needed to get the rigging replaced so the mast had to come off anyway. And I thought that a decent spray job would result in a good sale price for the boat. I sold her last year, and the paint job helped me achieve a top price, as well as making it much easier to sell!

This is what the stripes looked like when it came out of the paint shed...

Fslide1-4_zpsf4e65346.jpg
Click to expand...

wow, thats spot on mate. And your comments of how a bad job can ruin the boat are exactly what I'm concerned with. This was your 352? she looks gorgeous. I will look at the awlgrip non spray application and see if they do the same colour in that. If I can get a finish on my 38 that's half as good as what you have there I would be well happy. especially as I've bought the boat to go blue water cruising so it will undoubtedly take knocks and scrapes along the way. As, when and if I ever sold it (cant imagine I would unless I win the lottery and can buy a newer 39 ) then just prior to that would be a good time for a spray. right now, she's a 'working' boat - just want to keep her smart and shipshape while she carries us on our way.
 
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