painting over gelcoat? how to

i have a small fiberglass fishing boat with an ugly gelcoat. it is grey from factory. its a 1986 and 15feet , stays on my trailer about 27 days a month, i use it about 2-3 days a month, never in water for any good period of time.<br /><br />i would like to just repaint the dam#ed thing to something colorfull. and dont say awl grip, im not rich, i just wanna have it look a lil better(this is a cheep project boat)<br /><br />what steps or precautions should i take when painting over gelcoat, and what about the decals from the factory, can i just sand them off? they are on top the gel coat.<br /><br />thanks guys, i tried to search for this, but i didnt find enough so here i go.<br /><br />m ikey

Re: painting over gelcoat? how to

Just paint it like it was a car. Get the decals off by heating with a hairdryer & peel 'em off, or sand them. Somtimes you can lay a rag soaked in Lacquer thinner on them and they'll 'puff' enough to come off too.<br /><br />Prime it first and the new paint will stick better. Most auto paint stores have a few different lines of material at varying prices. Get some sort of fleet finish, or 2nd line that they usually sell a bunch of to the 'we tote the note' car lots. It looks OK, and should last you 4-5 years even if its out in the sun all the time.<br /><br />You should be able to buy a paint system that will do a good job for around a hundred bucks.

Re: painting over gelcoat? how to

I'd wet sand the whole thing before painting, use one of those foam sanding blocks, or better still hire a random orbit sander that can wet sand, get a good even satin finish all over and the primer will stick much better.<br />Check out the International range of marine paints, they do a primer for polyester, and their Topsides gloss gives a great finish using the "roll and tip" method, almost as good as a sprayed finish and the stuff is not expensive.