Poly Glow Blows

[ted_reshetiloff]

I took off work last week and hauled the 38. Spent 4 10 hour days stripping bottom paint. Started with 36 grit on a DA and ended up using a very good 1 inch scraper. Lots of paint. Got it all off down to the barrier coat, which I was glad to find in good shape. DA'd the hull with 40 grit. Did some spot repair of a few small blisters. Long boarded the hull and keel for about 5 hours after refairing the keel joint with 24 oz biaxial glass and then filler. So the bottom is in sweet shape. I figured before painting I would clean up the top sides. Used a cleaner called On and Off. Great stuff, very acidic and will burn the hell out of you if you get it on ya, but removed all stains. I was still left with the remains of a Poly Glow application that someone did at some point. This crap was peeling and flaking a looked like hell. I got my hands on a bottle of the stripper for this stuff, Poly Prep. I had to go over the hull twice to get all of this crap off my hull. It will not come off with rubbing compound so you have to use the stripper. After removing it all I compounded the hull and applied a coat of wax. The boat looks like new. I am amazed at how good it came out. My point here is if any of you are considering the "magical fix your gelcoat in a bottle" route I would advise you avoid it. Everyone I have talked to about this stuff has said it will leave your hull looking like crap after a year or so. Now I guess you could remove it and reapply but sounds like an expensive PITA verses wax...

We ended up rolling the bottom paint as my sprayer friend could not come through, but after 3 coats of Petit Vivid in White we had a polishing party with 600 grit and now have a slick fair bottom. So the past 7 days have been spent busting my butt in the boat yard living on advil but it sure looks sweet. Well I did make it to the Volvo party, sorry I didn't see Chris, but there were several thousand there... Boat pics to come soon.

 

[treilley]

3 years and counting

Nice job on the bottom strip. I did that last year. What a PITA.

My Poliglow looks great after 3 years with a few maintenance coats every year. It has not peeled or yellowed. Most people have problems with this product because they take shortcuts and do not prep properly. I used the poliprep and spent a lot of time prepping the topsides. I was down to fresh gelcoat and then apllied the Poliglow. It looked awfull for the first 2 coats. Lots of streaking and overlap marks. By coat 4, I thought I had a new boat. At the beginning of each season I spend an afternoon using the poliprep to clean up the topsides and then apply 2 or 3 coats. See the link below for how she looks now. This is a 1976 Pearson 28. She will look like this at the end of the season too. I have yet to find a wax that lasts more than a month or 2 even here in Maine. My sailing season is 6 months and I just cannot easily wax the topsides 3 times a season.

Now Island girl blows. I struggled with that product for weeks 3 years ago.

http://treilley.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album08

Tim R.

 

[ted_reshetiloff]

Tim I am glad to hear you have had good luck with the stuff. My existing gel coat was not in that bad shape so I was a bit confused as to why someone would use this stuff to bigin with on this boat.