After much sanding and sanding and sanding and then waiting for a fairly dry day I finally laid down glass today. I reglassed the whole floor and stringers. I wasnt gonna do the floor but a buddy at Ski Centurion gave me all the resin and glass I needed so I went to town. I used 3.5 ounce chop strand mat and 1.5 I think woven mat on top. Now I have a bunch more sanding to do. I am debating having someone Gelcoat or just trying some Duplicolor rattle can. What do you think??

Here if before glass and after I dowled the old motor mount holes and them filled all the screw holes etc and sanded my ass off



Here if after

I will look into that tomorrow thanks for the info. I have another "buddy" that will do the GelCoat for $200. I have to do all the sanding and prepping. The bedliner would probably take less prep since its so thick. I want a smooth surface so I can clean up spills etc. real easy.

Ah come on man, who in the world woud use spray paint in a bildge? I'm serious. That's pretty micky mouse when you consider that's a fairly hostile area when you think of what's going to be collecting down there...whether you build a leak proof engine or not. Oil, fuel, beer not to mention standing water. No spray paint on the face of the planet will hold up to this with out blistering and peeling.

Do yourself a favor, prep the nice glass work you did and buy a half gallon of gel coat and do it right. It'll last forever, be tough as nails and you can wipe it clean like a sheet of glass. 

Oh by the way, you should have used some regular laminating cloth as your final layer in your lay up, then you would have ended up with a super fine surface to work with, and not the surface that that woven roving type cloth gave you to finish. Roving down first, then mat then cloth. You could have roughed it up, and filled all the imperfections with one coat of resin, then applied your finish. No big deal, you just made a lot of sanding for youself...itch itch itch.

I wouldn't have thought that spray paint would hold up to being covered with a coat of resin. At least not the resin were talking about, maybe the resin used for crafts and table tops, which is of no use to us here. As you know, laminating or tooling resin, is not clear. I'm not sure how it'd look color wise over paint, if it could be done at all. Gel coat chemicaly bonds to resin, paint does not. You're interrupting the bond between the two by using the rattle can paint. Gel coat should, if applied correctly, last a life time.

A layer of cloth will do nothing, unless your're covering a wood deck boat. Unless you have your finish mirror smooth, it will show every bump, dip and any other imperfection there. The best thing for you to do is to lay down 1oz of mat with some cloth on that. The purpose of cloth over mat is to squegie out the air bubbles. Many high-end builders I was lucky enough to work for would squegie out the air bubbles during lamination, and then remove the cloth before the resin kicks to save on the weight of the hull. Very clean lay up. You still have a bunch of sanding to do to get to this point. 

On the other hand, helmets are made of layer upon layer of cloth. Dick Schuster and Gil Gaska, before they started Tahiti, were laminators at Powercat and built some of the race boats out of nothing but cloth. Extremely strong hulls but very labor intensive as you can imagine. It would take 20 layers of cloth, at least, to do the job. This was in the late 50s and early 60s. Much has chnaged since then.

You can get very nice results by using a fine brush to apply the gel coat. It'll flow to a smooth finish...as smooth as being sprayed? No. But acceptable for most, we did it like that at most shops I ever worked at. Just mix it cool so it won't kick before it has a chance to flow.

hot rod,
my friend did the same thing for years. Palmolive seemed to work the best. Really, it did.  Like you said, spotless bildge.

My old boss use to pull to the side of the road, and pull the drain plug on the oil pan in his K boat, jump back in the car and drive home. Pull into the shop and pop the plug back in, wipe up the surprisingly little mess in the bottom of the boat and refill the engine. (filter too)

How'd you like to follow him home form the river. 

This was back in the 80s. And even though it's something I wouldn't do, when you think about it, it's no worse than than all the ratty old cars that have serious oil leaks driving down the road. It's not like he dug a hole in the forest and dumped it, he just let it dribble out on the highway. In fact he probably did the surface of asphalt highway a little good, kept it fresh so to speak. 

Today I sanded down the top layer and it came out really good. I am done glassing for now. I bought some Gel and applied it today and it looks so so. Still some brush strokes that I dont care for. So I just put a good coating on the sides and carpet over them. I am gonna have someone spray the bilge and stringers Monday and get the nice smooth finish.

Over all I am really pleased with the project. I learned a ton and I know if there ever is another boat I tackle it will come out a little better and a little smoother process. Overall I spent $200 in materials and about 30 hours time. I want to thank everyone for the phone support and help. Especially Jim who needs to make his way to Meced for the Sanger Reunion!!! I will post some pics in a few

Just curious....... would Line-X work in there??

Line X would have been great but it was gonna be like $480 and I spent $50 on the DupliColor and can touch it up at home whenever I want. The Line X people would not guarantee adhesion to fiberglass and the DupliColor is a resin base which is perfect........