Fiberglass hull repair and painting
Let me explain right at the outset...when I say restoration I mean restoring it to usable condition. I'm not trying to restore this boat to original factory condition. I'm not a collector. I'm just going to get a grand old girl back into the water and enjoy her.
This is a 1972, 23' Uniflite Open Sport Fisherman. The boat was in awful shape when I bought it (it has been underwater at some point in its life) but I was really just looking for a good solid hull. This is a very solid hull.
I had seriously considered (for many years) building my own boat. I read lots of information. Did lots of planning. Made lots of calculations. In the end, I decided that restoring an old boat with a solid hull was a better choice. There are lots of boats out there for sale (really cheap) that could be restored. For some reason the boat's current owner has decided that the cost of restoration is not worth the value of the boat and is willing to sell it cheap. Much (most?) of the cost of restoration is labor. If you are willing to provide the labor it may be worthwhile to restore that boat.
After serious consideration and substantial research I started looking for an early 70's fiberglass hull. The very earliest (60's) fiberglass boats suffer from some problems because the technology was brand new. Later hulls often are thinner and/or have core materials that degrade with time. During the 70's many hulls (like those from Uniflite) were solid fiberglass and were thicker than really necessary. Lacking decades of experience with fiberglass many manufacturers built their hulls thicker than absolutely necessary. These are likely good candidates for reconstruction. Experts (like those at DIY Boat) recommend restoration of boats that have classic designs and solid construction (I think Uniflites meet those criteria).
Of course, a 30 year old boat is going to show some wear and tear. There's going to be some labor involved in repairing that damage. Although the hull of my boat is solid and has no stress cracks or blisters (none at all!), there are lots of chips and gouges in the gelcoat like this one.
I've ordered some epoxy resin and fumed silica (as a thickening agent) from John Greer to fill these chips and gouges. I intend to fill all the holes and fair the repairs with thickened epoxy. That means I will have to paint the whole hull.
There's also many years worth of old bottom paint to deal with. Multiple layers of ablative paint have been applied and they've sloughed off unevenly while the boat has been sitting on the trailer (the boat has been out of the water for at least 10 years).
I plan to keep the boat on the trailer (it might be in the water for a couple of days at a time), but I think I'll replace the bottom paint with a new ablative paint. The current paint seems to be tight, it's just very rough. I think it will work to put new ablative bottom paint on without completely stripping the old paint.
I hope you've found my web page useful (or at least amusing). If you're also restoring an old fiberglass boat I'd like to hear from you.
Please remember that I'm not advocating or recommending that you take any course of action. I'm just describing my experiences. I will not accept any responsibility or liability if you injure yourself (or someone else) working on a similar project. I'm not a professional boat restorer. I have no affiliation with any company mentioned on this web page except as a satisfied customer.
Cheers,
visitors since 15 September
2001
A major repair will be closing up the hole in the transom where I removed the outdrive. I'm going to convert this boat to a direct inboard system. So, I pulled off the original outdrive (it was complete junk anyway). Now there's a big hole in the transom that needs repair.
This picture does give some idea of the construction of the hull. At the bottom of the hole you can see that the hull is almost 1/2" thick and solid fiberglass. This kind of construction makes restoration/repair much simpler than with cored or thinner hulls.
I don't really intend to strip the entire hull. However, I want to remove the bottom paint where it's visible and it's so uneven that it will look bad. I started using a fiberglass paint stripper from Klean Strip. It's a methylene chloride stripper and I know that those may attack fiberglass, but the manufacturer claims it is OK for stripping paint from fiberglass.
At the left in this picture you can see the state of the bottom paint when I bought the boat. At the right is what the boat looks like under the old paint. The chemical stripper works pretty well.
I don't intend to completely strip the entire bottom of the boat. I want to remove the old bottom paint where it is visible and where it is clearly uneven. I also want to take the paint off of areas where there is damage to the fiberglass underneath. I think this chemical stripper will work fine for that purpose.
