The Westerly graze?

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elettra

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I am looking at possibly buying a 1984 westerly and the upper deck fiberglass finish appears dull and scratched. The salesman calls this "the westerly graze" and says it is perfectly normal and could be polished out! Has anybody heard of this? All comments welcomed.
 
Is it rather grey with quite a lot of fine scratches? If so, it can be polished out, but it requires some hard work with fine wet and dry paper followed up with a lot of polishing. The gelcoat is comparatively deep but it's easy ( especially with a machine polisher) to go too far.
 
I suspect most Westerlies of that age will have gel coat as you describe.Mine did. I have found that a good pressure wash will clean out the tiny scratches which makes subsequent polishing less arduous. You will never have a finish like a brand new boat but if the boat is sound in mechanical , structural and equipment and its the right price for you, it should not put you off.

Howard.
 
Farecla rubbing compound G3 at first and perhaps G10 to finish they are both abrasive.. Any car polish will do but polish doesnt last more than a couple weeks. Starbrite make a good one ,so I believe have'nt used it though. This cleaning malarky is all well and good but do'nt let it get in the way of sailing.
 
Amari is same age and GRP was generally looking scruffy. Painted hull and topsides last year with Awlgrip (following recommendation on this forum). Quite expensive but Turkish labour less than UK. Looks excellent and hopefully will last
 
The gel coat in the cock pit on my boat was pretty bad so I painted it and it looks much better. There are perhaps some issues over re-sale but I am not intending to sell for years and so I took the view that I would rather have it nice and shiney than manky. There are some on here who will argue against painting coach roof , cock pit etc. Depends upon your long term view and how many pennies you have!! No matter what you do it will never be a new boat.

Howard
 
Getting a decent finish painting topsides needs lots of patience, scrupulous preparation and time for masking up, removing hardware etc. Amari cleartly got his done professionally in Turkey at a reasonable price. I reckon that if you are tempted to a DIY job and have any qualms about your ability don't start, otherwise you will end up with an obviously amateur job that will look worse that the faded original.
 
I have a westerly of similiar age. Two things:
Firstly do not even think about painting the cockpit by hand. it will look very poor and you will have great difficulty selling it. I say this based on experience of looking at one I was thinking of buying, the poor guy couldn't understand why he had so much interest but no-one came for a second look and he had no offers.


Secondly, Gel coat can be polished up to look almost as good as new ( not quite though) using 3 grades of polish/ rubbing compund type stuff. BUT if these poor areas and marks are on outside corners of the cockpit moulding ie where the vertical bits turn over and go horizintal where they meet the deck then it may be something completely different which will never polish out. That is a where the gel coat is thin and the lay up is showing through from the inside if you polish hard enough with rubbing compound you will make it look worse ! Believe me I have tried ! This is quite common in Westerlies and sounds to me quite close to what is on your boat. But don't worry it is very common and not a structural issue. Post a photo and I can comment further

Regards
 
Have to disagree with you on this!.. perfectly possible to produce a decent finish in cockpit (or elsewhere) providing that you prepare thoroughly, mask properly, and use a decent paint system! if you can't spray, then lay on paint with brush and lay off with jenny brush (foam brush-cheap as chips) gets rid of brush marks! I found Toplac was exceedingly effective! (on a 79 Discus)
 
Told you they would be along later! So one poor chap had a go and got it wrong . Does that really mean that no one should ever try again.
 
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