Commander #155 'Mephisto Cat'

[Rico]

1.) After the gelcoat has cured I assume you have to sand with progressively finer grit and then buff it out. Is that assumption correct?
-The finish is quite smooth after the initial spraying and due to the use of the curing compound there is no sticky residue on the top layer. Having said that, the gel coat spray is quite thick and in order to end-up with a glassy smooth finish, you do have to sand (1200 grit+) & then polish. It works quite nicely.

2.) How exactly did you handle the non-skid? Do you have some kind of pattern in the new gel-coat on the non-skid?
-C-155's non skid (the original texture) was in amazingly good condition so we simply cleaned these areas up using a soft wire brush in order not to damage the basket-weave texture. This only got a couple of light coats as to not drown the texture. We did this as a trial initially, but saw that it worked pretty well, so we called it good... I did not sand, or polish these areas.
It is not comparable to the sandpaper-like finish on some other boats I sail on, but I'm pretty happy even with the wet performance on the original texture. I imagine that eventually, I'll have to go with a non-skid coating on those areas, but this will be quite a few years down the line. Since I've done this I've seen many coatings used, and some are much more appealing than others. I am very happy with the results.

3.) What kind of prep did you have to do to the smooth and non-skid areas prior to shooting the gelcoat?
-See #2 above for the non-skid areas on the deck.
The boat was in very good condition structurally - there were no areas that were weak or suffering from delamination, and no major dings or impact damage. We sanded down to clean and uncompromised material. It is amazing how well the materials have held-up!
After applying a few coats on the topsides and discovering the little bubbles in the original gel coat we sanded some more and then used a filler to make sure we had a completely smooth surface.
We then sanded the filler away (except where the little bubbles captured a bit of filler ensuring that we left a rough surface and removed all dust and residue before spraying the new gel-coat.
There was a bit of a scar from a ding on the stern rail and here we had to do a bit of skin surgery (glass work) to make sure that it was solidly repaired and smooth for paint. As they say - all the work is in the prep. It is very true.

Another area that we focused on was the hull-deck joint; Since I wanted to do away with the rubrail trim pieces... In this area there was quite a bit of focus to seal the joint stoutly and then fair the surfaces so that it would look nicely finished once the Gel-coat came on. The visual transition made with the trim was made instead by the change-in-color line at about the same line as the deck joint. You may have noticed that there is a bit of an angle change at the rail as you come up from the hull curve, we followed that line for the color change.

4.) How long ago was it that you did the gelcoat and how well has it held up?
-The Gel-Coat is two and a half years old now, and it is holding-up beautifully. I've heard some horror stories around the marina about gel coat jobs that cost a fortune and then fall apart in a year. I've personally never seen any like this, and would recommend the gel-coat work thouroughly. Of course; if you do not do the work yourself, the cost to simply disassemble the hardware on the boat is outrageous! You may be able to paint around stuff, but gel coating around stuff would be a disaster.


5.) Have you been waxing the boat on a regular basis to keep her looking good?
-I gave the boat an insanely good wax job prior to launch, but I have not done so since then - been too busy sailing! I am planning on doing this soon. I am a stickler for wax on my cars and feel guilty about not doing it on the boat more often. The boat does not look like it needs it, but I'm sure it will help to reduce the potential UV damage. BTW - I really like Collonite's fleet wax. It is a great product intended for marine and aviation applications.

6.) What products did you use & How much?
-I used Valspar Coatings' Gel coat. I bought a dark gray (1ea. 5 Gal. Pail) and their nice basic white (2 ea. 5 Gal pails - I bought the second pail only AFTER I decided to re-do the interior...) and 1 qt of bright Red for the waterline stripes. I mixed my own colors using the colors mentioned (with the addition of a few drops here & there of Gel coat coloring agent to tweak the red into my desired shade)

This was enough to do all the coats we ended up doing on C-155 (probably 3 times the minimum thickness needed!!), plus all of the interior in white (VERY thick), and a bunch of odds & ends (e.g: the lead pigs & a metal grating door -not on the boat!). I figure that the second pail went mostly on the inside. We only had about 1 gallon of White & 1/2 Gallon of the hull gray, and about 1/2 qt of red left over. We used all of the light gray mixed at that time, but I've since matched a bit I needed when installing the sail track.


147 - I'm glad that the pictures helped. If you still need more please let me know.

[Commander 147]

That was very helpful in understanding the process. From the pictures I've seen I agree with the guy that said you have the only new commander in existence.

[ebb]

Just beautiful work,
really is amazing!

I don't recall anybody on the net handling and spraying on gelcoat to the extent you guys have. Never seen it done at the yard.

It's so professional it's like you do it all the time!
If you came cold to this miracle and didn't reinvent the wheel so to speak....
REALLY IS AMAZING.

Restoration at its finest.