Question on paint layers

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Question on paint layers

Postby Shellback » Fri Sep 04, 2015 5:23 pm

Hi,
I'm new to fiberglass work, so I'm trying to learn as much as I can before I dig in too far on my DS1. In the follow picture, can someone help me identify the layers I'm seeing where it's been sanded down? This is on the port side with forward being to the left, just outside the cuddy.

#1 in the picture, what is this? It looks to be some sort of textured non-skid that wraps its way up to the forward deck and it's painted black, but underneath the black is the blue, which I would assume was the original paint or gelcoat (also don't know which it is, paint or gelcoat).

#2 I would assume is a paint that was put over the original at some point.

#3 I'm thinking this is the original color, again, not sure if it's paint or gelcoat.

#4 I'm assuming this is the actual fiberglass. I'm thinking that it needs to be stripped down to that layer since all the other layers seem to be in pretty bad shape.

Any help or pointers to posts that might help would be appreciated!
The second shows the extent of #1 to the front.
Thanks
Image

Image
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Re: Question on paint layers

Postby GreenLake » Fri Sep 04, 2015 7:00 pm

What you call the "actual fiberglass" should be obvious when you reach it, because that would reveal the fiber structure. Fiberglass is transparent, if you sand through paint and gelcoat on both inside and out, you can shine light through it. In contrast, gelcoat is always opaque. When sanding into laminate that is painted from the backside, it will look dark.

The non-skid texture would have been patterned in the mold for the deck. When building the deck, right after covering the mold with release agent, would be to "paint" it with a thick layer of gelcoat (thick relative to a layer of paint for example). It might well be that the #4 is the original gel coat. You would expect the gel coat to fill the dimples in the pattern, so when the laminate is build up during the next steps, it would not actually reach there.

So, lets' take it that #4 is the gelcoat.

#3 and #2 seem to be two layers of paint.

#1 has me puzzled because where it's sanded through it does not clearly show blue as the next layer in the picture, so I have to take your word for it that it is the top layer where found. In which case it's another paint layer.

You could sand through to the gelcoat (#4) everywhere, but I think that might be overkill. It depends on whether the other pant layers show good adhesion (and whether you can find a primer that will stick to them). I would sand some areas and do a test strip with your intended primer and top coat.

For the non-skid, there are several techniques on how to restore it. You can get rubber molds that let you rebuild it using gel-coat. You can mix sugar or salt (coarse) into the paint and dissolve it out when the paint is dry to leave a textured pattern. (I've personally tried neither, but a bit of search will lead you to lots of discussions on the topic, including some here).
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