HOW TO SAVE $5700.

[magicwormman]

I felt I had to share this bit of information. I have a 2000 Ranger bass boat and the top gel coat was looking very shabby. I should have taken a before and after picture but I did not. I had taken it up to championship Marine and they gave me an estimate of almost $6,000 to shoot gelcoat on the top cap. Not wanting to spend that kind of money, on a boat that is 17 years old, I decided to go another route. A friend recommended that I take it to Tommy mayr and see if he could detail the boat and improve the condition of the fiberglass gelcoat. I will let you be the judge.This boat hasn't looked this good since it was brand new and Tommy only charged me $225. For those that might be interested, Tommy's number is 417-294-8458.

[dtrs5kprs]

Pics...

[magicwormman]

Oh yes, Once again my phone won't allow me to upload the pictures. Ned Dave to the rescue.

[abkeenan]

I'd say you made the right decision. I'd also say that I'd like to throat punch someone trying to charge me 6K to make my boat more  "shinier".

[abkeenan]

Oh yeah and sharp older boat. Looks great.

[Flysmallie]

I used to do this boat detailing thing for extra cash when I was younger. You can do a lot of good to some gelcoat with a buffer and some compound if you know what you are doing. It's a heck of a workout too. 

That's a good price too. I was getting more than that 20 years ago. 

[Ketchup]

Sharp looking boat there. Now you can upgrade anything on the boat and still be money ahead. 

[Stein]

Good price but one thing you should be aware of is once gel coat is "dead" even if it is buffed it generally goes back to cloudy fairly quickly - like less than a season.  My old Gambler was dead and would buff up very pretty but go back to cloudy in a few months.  Just an FYI, that's all.

[Flysmallie]

15 minutes ago, Stein said:

Good price but one thing you should be aware of is once gel coat is "dead" even if it is buffed it generally goes back to cloudy fairly quickly - like less than a season.  My old Gambler was dead and would buff up very pretty but go back to cloudy in a few months.  Just an FYI, that's all.

That's a good thing to mention but let me explain what is really happening there. If it goes back cloudy very quickly then you didn't do enough to repair the damage in the beginning. A lot of the products that are sold to bring a clear or gel coat back to life are just a bandaid. Once the weather has had time to destroy it then it will wash right off and you will be back to the original cloudy look. But if the damage isn't too severe (you can't tell this by appearance) then you can properly remove that cloudy layer of gel coat. That's what you are really doing is removing the cloudy layer. If you can get that cloudy layer removed and take care of the finish it will not come back. For most boats my first step in bringing back the shine was to sand the finish. Sand all that old crap off. Then buff it back to a beautiful shine. Most boats have a decent layer of gel coat on but you need to know what you are doing or you are going to end up doing more harm than good.

I did a lot of boats like this. There was a Champion that I was around all the time for 5 or 6 years that never came back with the cloudiness. Champions and Rangers were great because they had plenty of gel coat on that sanding thru or buffing thru was never an issue. Others not so much. I was surprised by the ski boats too. I don't really remember any brands but I took out some very serious scratches just by sanding and buffing and none of those ever came back. Maybe they sunk afterwards. 

[Ketchup]

I had a Bomber "any of you remember those" bass boat in 1993 that was very oxidized and the clear was pretty rough. Being a young guy at the time, with time and energy on my hands, I spent a week, every evening after work in my garage, wet sanding every inch of the top side above the rub rail. I sprayed 2 layers of clear coat over it after I was satisfied with the wet sanding, and let me tell you what. That sucker shined. The pitting you see on boats left out after several years is the clear coat cracking/peeling.