Mys Terry wrote:

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006 17:43:52 GMT, Don W
wrote:

It seems to me that if the manufacturers could save a bit by
switching from gel coat to Imron or Awlgrip they would.
Yet the boat manufacturing industry uniformly uses gel coat
instead of paint.

That's not exactly true, Don. If you order a new red or blue C&C 99, they take a
standard gelcoated white hull and PAINT it with awlgrip. I would not be at all
surprised if that is the way the majority of manufacturers do it. (Metalflake
Bass boats aside!)

Interesting. I went to their website, and see that Awlgrip
is an option for dark hull colors. I'd like to hear their
rationale. It is also interesting that they don't offer
Awlgrip in the light hull colors.

http://www.c-cyachts.com/model/model...b-a61eae41d7de

I wonder if they plan to do this for their other models as
well. The darker gel coat colors do tend to show oxidation
rather badly.

Also, are you sure that they are actually painting over a
white gelcoat? That seems odd, since scratches would stand
out pretty dramatically and they could just as easily apply
Awlgrip over a color matched gelcoat.

BTW, I'm not putting down the two-part paint systems. I've
painted with them and they work well. If sprayed on a well
prepped surface, the finish can be spectacular. A lot of
people even report good results using DIY methods such as
"rolling and tipping".

My point was that if you are going to go to all the trouble
to prep the hull for painting, and you are set up to spray,
why not spray gel coat. The material cost is about the
same, and you can spray a much thicker coating that can be
wet sanded and buffed for many years to come. The downside
is that you may need to wet sand and buff it out after
spraying, and the positive side is that you _can_ wet sand
and buff it out. For decks, an additional downside to
gelcoating may be that you have to redo all of the patterned
non-skid. However, I notice that the new Catalinas are
using a texture gun to apply the non-skid instead of using a
mold pattern.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this lately, because
the deck on our Catalina 27 needs to be redone. I will
spray it, but the issue is whether to spray gelcoat or
paint. I have some concerns about the long-term durability
of Awlgrip or any other paint when used as a surface to walk on.