Busy week,
But I do have some comments.
Greg your boat looks good. I have a friend that purchased a older faded yellow H14 and I plan on getting him to try it. Good tip Jake. I have seen this stuff at boat shows but I am skeptical of these kind of products and am tired of wasting my money on the latest quick fix that doesn't work. Fact is it's still just a band aid but the best I've seen so far.
I preface my comments with some of my experience just so you know. In the late 70's early 80's I worked for KIWI BOATS. We built custom one-off racing yachts. IMP,LOVE MACHINE, EVERGREEN, KIALOA IV. Just to name a very few. We were on the cutting edge building composite,balsa cored boats. Back then we built them on a male mold. As you might guess the outside of the boat is raw glass and has to be finished by hand. So how do you fair a 81 ft. hull to perfection? Sandpaper, fart rock, putty,epoxy primer, paint and a lot of work day and night. We also built the KIWI 40 and MINI TONNER in female molds. Those had gel coat exteriors. For the last 22 years I've worked in my own business touching up cars. The last 5 for high end dealers only. I have had Cats since 1982.
I don't claim to know everything but I do have a good working knowledge of finishes painted and gel coated.
One other thing Greg, none of us really explained why your hulls look good for a short time after you buffed and waxed and then go bad so fast. Picture a cross section of the surface. A new surface is smooth. A degraded surface looks like a mountian range with peaks, valleys and slopes. When you buff you polish only the peaks. Not the slopes which depending on how bad the surface is has much more surface area than the
peaks. You have done nothing to polish or remove the oxidation from the slopes and valleys. Wax leaves, right back where you started.
If the gel coat is not that badly degraded it can be sanded and polished. We have first hand experience not coming from me but MBOUNDS. He lays out a good schedule of sanding. The only thing I would add is a guide coat so you don't over sand or under sand. A guide coat is simply a can of flat black spray paint. Dust it very lightly on before you start sanding. Sand until the paint is gone. This will also show the highs and lows which may be too much info for some. Sanding should be done by hand with a board file and there is a right way to sand. I could go on and on about this and if anyone wants to know more PM with your PH# and I'll gladly call you and discuss it.
Fact is there is only few ways to fix bad gel coat. Polish,sand and polish,re-gel coat or paint.
We're all so busy in life that every time we are confronted with a new experience, who has time to investigate everything and why reinvent the wheel. Somedody tells us how they tackled the issue and we follow their advice; after all we were the one without any relevant experience. But there's practical problem with giving advice. You can't say, just do what I tell you, cause they're a lot of us who might resent a sailor standing in for god. So I figure, to each their own, and am inclined to keep my mouth shut. But if you could sneak inside my skull you might hear, jeez I wonder why that guy insists on paddling upstream.
Daniel,
This comment,are you speaking of yourself? Let me straighten you out on a some of things. My comment about polishing my painted hulls meant after four years they looked as good as the day they were painted. Like Greg's hulls do now. I don't use wax,I was simply trying show the guy who bought my boat how nice it could look. It's all I had at the time. I have argued against waxing for racing on this forum before. The paint has lasted longer than any gel coated surface I have seen.
You say don't sand and buff, but you say it's ok to use a rag and compound. Talk about paddling upstream. The gel coated surface of a cat is the best surface you could ever get to buff for an amateur. It's not that hard to learn.
I've given you examples of painted boats. No comment?
I did go buy some 303. 16 oz bottle. Now it may help keep a new boat looking new. The bottle says 100% Prevention of UV caused slow-fade with regular use. SPF 40 for your stuff. Like your comment about Vertglas I doubt it. I can tell you that on the places I tried it there was no difference in color or sheen. I used a third of the bottle just on my decks in front of the main beam. It does not make an old boat that needs restoration look better. I have friends whose boats have aluminum strips on the bottom of their boats to help protect the hulls from beaching. Trust me the aluminum wears. This stuff will not prevent any wear from the beach.
Referencing your comment above. A lot of people visit this site to get info. Some are people that have never had a boat before. Make sure you don't cause them to paddle upstream.
