Aquarius Sail Owners

My boat needs a makeover.

When applying new paint, can I use the old paint as primer if it is prepared in the correct manner? Or, must it be removed and start from scratch?

Eric,

The hulls should not need to be taken down to primer if the preparation to the exsisting paint is done properly. If the hulls are sanded, filled and prepared in accordance with the paint you are going to use there should be no problems, but the person suppling the paint will be able to tell you the prep requirements.

Eric,

Matt gives some good advice. I would recommend that you prme the entire boat with an epoxy primer before applying your finish coats.

In reality the primer is the key to a good paint job. Poor primer equals a poor paint job no matter how good the finish coats are.

ok now i'm alittle confused.... this weekend i am going to paint my 19... i was going to use gelcoat but i'm not sure i should.... heres why... if the hulls of my 84' 19 were painted with "car paint" then the gel might not stick to it... so finally what was used to paint the hulls? gel or paint?

Hello,

All of the original SuperCat products had a Gelcoat finish that was applied in the mold. With the introduction of the ARC-22 (SC-22), ARC-21, ARC-17, RC-27 & RC-30 we switched to using high quality automotive paints on the exterior finish. There were several reasons for the switch from gelcoat to paint, including less weight and better fade resistance.

Now on to your 1984 SC19, this boat was originally finished in the mold with gelcoat. That being said, I would not re-gelcoat the hulls. Instead I would use a high quality automotive or marine paint. Applying gelcoat can be tricky and getting a good finish can be nearly impossible without a lot of sanding and polishing. Gelcoat is really designed to be applied in a mold that has a mirror finish, when gelcoat is applied after the fact you will commonly get a rough or severe orange peel surface.
Hope this helps.

Painted mine with Interlux Brightside and a foam roller, gave a very nice shiny finish except for the odd bug or two, looks a lot better than my Mystere that I did with epoxy paint, eaier too.

Fraidy