New guy with stupid questions

Hello to everyone. Stumbled upon this site a few days ago and have been doing some reading
I like what I see.
I just got a 1977 Glastron bass boat that I have decided to restore and I have some questions.
The transom is gone. This will be the third transom I replaced in a bass boat but I have always
used the glass and resin that I could get from Napa (Yea grinding between layers),. Now for my
questions.
1. Is the 1.5oz. glass thicker than what you get from Napa?
2. Are you adding wax to the last layer to get the resin to set up hard?
3. If your boat is metal flake why can't you just sand the old clear off and wet sand and spay clear
on it?
Back about 30 or 40 years ago when we would paint a car with metal flake we would spray a base
color, then add metal flake to clear and spay it till we got the build up of flake we wanted.(Never make the
mistake of rubbing your hand on it!) Then we would just wet sand it to cut the flakes down smooth and add
a couple more coats of clear. Yea you guessed it my Glastron is metal flake. I understand that if
you use acetone to wipe it the flake will turn black. We always used reducer to clean before we used
the tack rags.
I'm sorry if I'm coming across as a Ahole but I would like to know before I mess my boat up.
Thanks

Re: New guy with stupid questions

I'm no expert, but I believe "old" metal flake was aluminum; new stuff is poly or mylar.

The difference that I see is that the new stuff gives the same sparkle from much smaller flakes which are able to be sprayed through normal guns/tips. Becuse they make a smoother coat, there is less work to get the same effect.

I'm doing a Ranger and plan on using these guys or similar:

http://www.paintwithpearl.com/metal_flake.htm

I'm figuring less work with a better final product, but I have few small areas to repair that will need the old flake blended with matching new - better to redo all.

Re: New guy with stupid questions

However, part of your plan may still work anyway. I've seen tons of folks sand to wetsand their gelcoat and restore some of it's "luster" of old. Also, there's a lot of new chemicals out that folks are having a lot of success with.