Sanding gel coat

[ondarvr]

He means nothing there may be able to be saved and rejuvenated, so you may need to start over with a new finish. That finish is for you to decide on, if you wish to go with a solid color it will be a bit of work, if you want re-do it with a similar metal flake look you will up the hassle-factor several fold.

 

[Woodonglass]

With metalflake Gel or paint, once the Clear comes off and exposes the flakes it is very difficult to do much with it. If it's just a small spot it can be repaired, but looking at your pic, I'm inclined to believe that if you want to keep the Metal Flake look you'll need to sand it all off until you get a smooth clean surface and then shoot some other coating on it. The video I posted shows on way to shoot Metalflake and get a similar look. I Personally have NOT attempted to shoot MF so I can't speak from experience on the difficulty or ease of doing so. I'm going to have to give it a shot soon so I can report my experience.

To get off all the Flake surface I'd use 40-60 grit paper on a R/O sander. If you have a large compressor a R/O air sander would be a good choice.

 

[Millpro]

Well based on the pic some places on the top bow deck don't have any metalflake left. In order to make it look somewhat decent, I don't see how you can do it any other way other than starting with a clean slate.

After sanding the entire top half of boat with 200 grit I believe I have removed all material besides the flake. I would say the entire top half of the boat has retained 95% of the original flake. What I think your seeing is the sealer just dulled and bleached making it seem like the flake is gone. I get the boat back next week and will take detailed pics.
Lastly, after researching people who have sanded to far, just go to Michaels(women's craft store) and toy can match any flake for next to nothing. Yes I agree you can't do a entire boat, but you can definitely Tuch up small areas you sanded to far.

 

[ondarvr]

I've done this stuff for decades, it's not that simple, most repairs turn out very noticeable. Yes it can be done correctly and look great, most of the time that doesn't happen on your first attemp though. To get it to look good you need to match the size, color and type of flake, plus the amount of flake in the mix, then use clear gel coat and possibly a backup color.

The original clear will have discolored, the original flakes will have too, so even if you had the original products it wouldn't look the same in the repaired areas.

You can re-do the the whole deck in metal flake, but most people go with a solid color to keep it simple, speed up the process and lower the cost.

 

[444]

Sand it down with some 400 grit. It will take a while but it won't gouge up your hull. Your goal is to not sand off all of the clear coat that was sprayed on. You just want to rough it up and blend together the areas with and without remaining clear coat. You will have to sand the transitions until you can no longer feel any sort of transition between the layers as you drag your fingers across it. This is called feathering, and I do it on cars all the time as well. Burning off all the clear coat is way too much work, as there are often large areas that are good enough to just give a scuff and shoot over. You want to target the areas that have peeled or are in the process of peeling. The 400 grit will leave a nice enough finish for you to paint right over after. There is no salvaging your previous paint job in this case.

 

[ondarvr]

He already sanded it with 200 grit and said the clear has been removed.

Leaving flaking clear is a very short term fix, it tends to start peeling again very soon, not really worth the effort and money.

 

[harleyman1975]

I see there are a few of us bodymen here! I say d.a. with 180 grit and then spray featherfill/spray poly whatever you want to call it. Then 220 sand that to give a smooth even "clean slate" (nod to WOG) then seal it and paint it with a metallic base of some sort (i.e. gold, silver, ect...) then 3 coats of house of colors flake in clear, followed with 3 coats of straight clear, color sand with say 800 then 3 more coats of clear...if you do it right it will look like a million bucks

 

[Millpro]

Thanks for all the opinions, I get the boat back today hopefully from the marine. I'll take detailed pics of where Im at with the sanding. I've sanded down all flaked/failed/stained/scratched gel coat or sealer or whatever substance you all choose to decide is on it with 150/200 grit. I dont feel I hit the flakes at all except in one small area at the back and that was on purpose to gauge my sanding pressure. Even the stained areas sanded down pretty good. I removed all the accessories,side plates,dock mounts and so on and sanded every inch.
A question I have is, some suggested I sand down the flakes and just repaint with solid color. I'm considering this, is it difficult?

 

[ondarvr]

I typed a long answer and the screen froze and I lost it, so this is a shorter version.


1 From here if you were able to buff it out and it looked good, it would be great. This would mean a couple of rounds of sanding with finer grit then buffing.
The cost and hassle would be low.


2. Another clear coat, if it worked, would make it look OK for a while. You could use a rattle can clear to test a couple spots and see if it looks good enough.
More work and cost, may not look good.

3. Solid color, this gives you a clean slate and you can fix any scratches or gouges currently in it easily, depending on the paint it can also be touched up later if needed. Cost and Hassle factor is medium.

4. Complete flake job. Not easy, there are many steps that if done incorrectly means you may need to start over.
Cost and hassle factor are high, time consuming.