Hi Everyone,
I really enjoy reading everyone's restoration threads so I figured I would post one of my own. I have done some work with smaller boats, but never anything major. Recently, I bought my first bigger project. A 23' 1972 Seasport.
I just finished refinishing the transom and wanted to share my progress with you guys.
Here is the first picture I have of the project. I had removed a home-made swim platform and the outdrive. The engine on this boat was bad and I had to order a new long-block but that is a different project for a different thread! As you can see, the boat was white with blue vinal stripes and some nascar stickers in each corner. It had some very rough spots on the transom from years of wear.
First things first, I sanded off the vinal stripes, the bottom paint, and the majority of the white paint. I didn't want to go down to fiberglass where I could avoid it, but because of some of the holes, issues, etc... I had to in some areas. This is a picture of the boat when it was close to being done being sanded. I ended up removing the two tie-down eyebolts, as well as doing some additional sanding in the center of the transom after this pic was taken.
(Not Pictured) Once I had sanded everything down, I filled the holes, chips, etc with Marine Tex from West Marine. There were a LOT of holes. Holes from old transducers, speedometers, swim platforms, etc. It ended up taking me 3 applications of Marine Tex because I kept finding imperfections as I went!
(Not Pictured) I knew that I wanted to paint my boat because I know that I'm not very good with gelcoat. However, I didn't trust that the paint would protect the bare fiberglass in the areas that I sanded down to it. So, I decided to coat the back of the boat in gelcoat before painting it. My thought was that the gelcoat could serve as a water barrior and the paint could simply make it look good. I got a quart of gelcoat from west marine, mixed it up and rolled it on. Then, I sprayed it with PVA Mold Release to make it cure. Once it was hard, I simply sanded it flat.
Once I had the gelcoat on, I primered the boat. I gave it 2 applications of 2-3 coats each. The reason for the 2nd application was that when I was sanding the first application, I sanded through the primer in a few locations and down to the gelcoat. I didn't think that the paint would sick to the bare gelcoat, so I did another coat of primer. I used 400 Grit sand paper to sand the primer after each application. Here is a picture of the first primer application.
After sanding the primer with 400 Grit sand paper, and re-taping everything off, I was ready to spray with white paint. My first crack at it...
After one application of 2 coats of paint, it was looking very white! Once the paint dried, I taped off the areas that I wanted blue stripes. I wanted to keep the orginial look of the boat (at least the colors) as I was only doing the transom at this time. Once those areas were taped off, I sanded the white paint with 600 grit sand paper to allow the blue paint to adhere to it correctly.
Here it is with the blue stripes...
All in all, I figure that it turned out quite well. At some paint, I think I will add bottom paint to the area below the bottom blue stripe, but for now I am happy with the results. I have not buffed the paint yet because it takes nearly 30 days for the paint to completely cure. I am now working on replacing the engine so I am not in any rush to push things on the paint job. Once the paint cures, I will wheel out the back and see how it really turned out but I have no doubts that I will be very happy with the results.
It's not a perfect paint job, but it's not bad for a rookie!
Once I get the motor replaced, I'll add more pictures of that process. Wish me luck!
If anyone has any questions, I'm NO expert but I will try to answer any questions in the thread.
Thanks,
Lwapo
I really enjoy reading everyone's restoration threads so I figured I would post one of my own. I have done some work with smaller boats, but never anything major. Recently, I bought my first bigger project. A 23' 1972 Seasport.
I just finished refinishing the transom and wanted to share my progress with you guys.
Here is the first picture I have of the project. I had removed a home-made swim platform and the outdrive. The engine on this boat was bad and I had to order a new long-block but that is a different project for a different thread! As you can see, the boat was white with blue vinal stripes and some nascar stickers in each corner. It had some very rough spots on the transom from years of wear.
First things first, I sanded off the vinal stripes, the bottom paint, and the majority of the white paint. I didn't want to go down to fiberglass where I could avoid it, but because of some of the holes, issues, etc... I had to in some areas. This is a picture of the boat when it was close to being done being sanded. I ended up removing the two tie-down eyebolts, as well as doing some additional sanding in the center of the transom after this pic was taken.
(Not Pictured) Once I had sanded everything down, I filled the holes, chips, etc with Marine Tex from West Marine. There were a LOT of holes. Holes from old transducers, speedometers, swim platforms, etc. It ended up taking me 3 applications of Marine Tex because I kept finding imperfections as I went!
(Not Pictured) I knew that I wanted to paint my boat because I know that I'm not very good with gelcoat. However, I didn't trust that the paint would protect the bare fiberglass in the areas that I sanded down to it. So, I decided to coat the back of the boat in gelcoat before painting it. My thought was that the gelcoat could serve as a water barrior and the paint could simply make it look good. I got a quart of gelcoat from west marine, mixed it up and rolled it on. Then, I sprayed it with PVA Mold Release to make it cure. Once it was hard, I simply sanded it flat.
Once I had the gelcoat on, I primered the boat. I gave it 2 applications of 2-3 coats each. The reason for the 2nd application was that when I was sanding the first application, I sanded through the primer in a few locations and down to the gelcoat. I didn't think that the paint would sick to the bare gelcoat, so I did another coat of primer. I used 400 Grit sand paper to sand the primer after each application. Here is a picture of the first primer application.
After sanding the primer with 400 Grit sand paper, and re-taping everything off, I was ready to spray with white paint. My first crack at it...
After one application of 2 coats of paint, it was looking very white! Once the paint dried, I taped off the areas that I wanted blue stripes. I wanted to keep the orginial look of the boat (at least the colors) as I was only doing the transom at this time. Once those areas were taped off, I sanded the white paint with 600 grit sand paper to allow the blue paint to adhere to it correctly.
Here it is with the blue stripes...
All in all, I figure that it turned out quite well. At some paint, I think I will add bottom paint to the area below the bottom blue stripe, but for now I am happy with the results. I have not buffed the paint yet because it takes nearly 30 days for the paint to completely cure. I am now working on replacing the engine so I am not in any rush to push things on the paint job. Once the paint cures, I will wheel out the back and see how it really turned out but I have no doubts that I will be very happy with the results.
It's not a perfect paint job, but it's not bad for a rookie!
Once I get the motor replaced, I'll add more pictures of that process. Wish me luck!
If anyone has any questions, I'm NO expert but I will try to answer any questions in the thread.
Thanks,
Lwapo
