bottom redo question
Posted: Dec 27th, '13, 23:03
Over the last week my boat partner and I sanded the two layers of bottom paint off the boat. The pervious owner had the the blister repair done before he brought the boat to California 9 years ago. According to the pervious owner he had the bottom stripped of gel coat and all the repairs were done with epoxy. After we stripped the bottom paint to uncover the repair work this looks to be correct. The large blisters were ground out and filled then glassed over and the smaller blisters filled with thickened epoxy. Next it looks like it was (kind of)faired with a pink fairing compound. I am assuming is AWL FAIR LW then coated with white Interprotect and lastly bottom paint. At this time the hull is bare of all hardwear and through hulls. A few issues have arisen. First, when the original repair work was done none of the hard wear was removed. There is still the original gel coat under the struts and rudder ports. This creates a 1/8 inch pad on the boat. Should I grind smooth and fair to the boat? Second, the repair work appears to be done with power tools/sanders. The bottom is wavy, VERY wavy. It was very hard to tell with the black bottom paint. This created a problem because now we have raw glass, faring compound and interprotect poke dotted throughout the bottom. Should I spend the time to remove the faring compound and whats left of the interprotect and fair the entire bottom with thickened epoxy? The bottom is smooth just very wavy. I will be filling and faring the old through hulls, putting in new fiberglass shaft logs and repairing rudder ports where needed. Thanks for the help and advice, Joe