Faded Black GelCoat

[Winerocks]

Howdy Scarab Folks!
I have owned a 2015 215 HO Impulse for 4 years, and have been struggling with the black sections fading. I’ve tried a different thing pretty much every year. This year I finally broke down and wet-sanded it. I started with 1000, then 2000, then 3M medium cut paste. I followed this with GlideCoat ceramic coating. It was a ton of work, but I’m very happy with the results.
Stay away from CostaCoat, the stuff is horrible.
I’ll follow up part way through the season to let everyone know how it’s holding up.

 

[Joatmon]

Wow that was a serious fade. I would of never thought you would get it to look so good. You did put in the time on that project.

I too have black gel coat fad albeit not so bad as you did. I use Meguiar's 771 Heavy Oxidation Scrub to keep it under control, but it takes a lot of effort so may not be the best method or product to use. Knowing how sensitive gel coat is I would not be brave enough to resort to using sandpaper. I cannot image how much time it took you.

 

[Winerocks]

It took around 6 hours per side. I was debating prepping and painting with black topcoat, but was more nervous about painting than sanding.
I’ve got a covered slip now, so UV damage should be minimal moving forward.

 

[Joatmon]

My anchor compartment cover had multiple cracks where Scarab did a crappy job of making. There were air voids and lots of filler that offers no support as glass fibers do so I had to grind out the voids and reinforce the entire cover underside with resin and mat. Painted and used a two part shaker can urethane top coat clear. Came out great and now supports my weight. Just a hassle of having to fix what was don’t done correctly during the build. That was minor compared to other issues I had to correct.

 

[captras]

Very impressed....awesome job!

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

Very impressed....awesome job!

+1

Jim

 

[zipper]

Very nicely done. Restoring oxidized gelcoat is very rewarding. There are not many of us who have taken a piece of sandpaper to gelcoat, but the results can be amazing when done right. Your black was worse than my orange, nice job.









It works on 30+ yo white sailboats too.

 

[Winerocks]

Very nicely done. Restoring oxidized gelcoat is very rewarding. There are not many of us who have taken a piece of sandpaper to gelcoat, but the results can be amazing when done right. Your black was worse than my orange, nice job.

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Incredible improvement on the orange!

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It works on 30+ yo white sailboats too.

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