Painting anywhere on the topsides of a boat should be the very LAST
thing you do. Once you paint, you're comitted to paint and paint and
paint as even the very best paints are only 'temporary' coatings.

Make a teeny 'test drilling' of the gelcoat to validate how thick the
original gelcoat. Do the drilling in the location for the new name so
that the new name covers the drilling. Then flat sand the gelcoat down
with progressively finer and finer wet and dry paper and a rubber
sanding block .... the teeny test hole will tell you 'how far' you can
flat-sand into the gel to remove the old name. Gel on transoms is
usually quite thick.
320---400 --600--1300---2000 grit wet & dry paper using a few drop
of dishwashing detergent and water as the sanding lubricant, then
powerbuff with 3M Finese-it and 3M perfect-it.

Forget paint as paint always ends up looking 'like ****' after a few
years; gelcoat is easy to flatsand and powerbuff and best of all its
'permanent'.


In article ThsXg.4586$WD1.1688@trndny04, Benning Wentworth
wrote:

The name of my boat, on the transom, has been on there for years. Long
before I bought her. I tried to remove the hailing port paint for a new
look last spring; couldn't get it all off. I tried all the usual methods.

To sum up; the transom looks like ****.

I got to looking at sailboats on the net, especially the transom name, look.
This got me thinking ??

What are your opinions of taping off the transom, dewax, sand, prime, and
put on a coat of two part epoxy .. then a new name paint job over.

I realize the paint job won't match the remainder of the hull. It would be
more bright, I'm sure. Would you paint the transom the same color as the
boot stripe? Or, paint the color ( white in my case ) that closely matches
the hull and paint the name the boot stripe color.

Transom opinions please ..

thanks