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 Post subject: Time for a botom job?
PostPosted: Wed Jul 25, 2012 7:19 pm 
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Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
The bottom edge on both of my hulls is very worn down. The paint is almost completely gone and at one point it has worn down to bare fiberglass. Time to do a bottom job?

If so, how does one go about doing a bottom job?

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 25, 2012 7:46 pm 
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Location: Raleigh, North Carolina
Search the repairs section. There are many good discussions about that topic. There is also a two-part hobie Hotline article that explains the process.

I did mine last fall. Doing the glass on the bottom is really easy. Making it look good is the time consuming part. The better you want it to look, the more time you'll spend sanding and painting/gel coating.


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PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 7:34 am 
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janek.w wrote:
The bottom edge on both of my hulls is very worn down. The paint is almost completely gone and at one point it has worn down to bare fiberglass. Time to do a bottom job?


Yes. When you can see exposed fiberglass, it is generally time to consider a bottom job.

Quote:
If so, how does one go about doing a bottom job?


The basic process involves flipping the boat over and sanding the exposed fiberglass and worn down gelcoat and wiping with aceton. You want to rough up and clean the surface so you get good adhesion. Mask off the hull so you don't get resin drips on it. Laminate layers of 1" to 2" wide fiberglass tape to reinforce and build up any areas where the fiberglass has been worn down. Fair in the edges of the tape after the resin cures. Use putty (Bondo or Formula 27) to fill in the glass weave and any deep scratches in the existing gelcoat. Fair in the putty after it cures. Spray or brush on gelcoat (several layers as necessary) to build up the bottom. Fair in as necessary.

It is a fairly easy process but takes a while because much of your time is spent wating fairing the hull and waiting for resin to cure.

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 10:25 am 
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From the looks of it, the OP has orange hulls. How hard is it to color match the gelcoat? I have yellow hulls and have been holding off on a bottom job primarily because it will probably look like crap if the colors don't match. I'm thinking that if I mask off the bottoms just right it won't look too bad if the off-color is just a straight line along the keel. It would look kind of like racing stripes but along the keel.

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 12:28 pm 
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There are color matching kits you can try and also pigments that can be added to resin & gelcoat although getting an exact match will be extremely difficult. If you mask the hull properly, there will very little gelcoat on the sides of the hull visible. Typical wear on a H16 is right in the area of the shroud anchors and straight on the bottom of the hull. If you do a sloppy job then yes, it will look like crap.

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 5:16 pm 
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PurdueZach wrote:
From the looks of it, the OP has orange hulls.


Nope. It USED to be orange. The gel coat has faded into a yucky brownish off - color. I'm planning on repainting the entire boat yellow. Color matching definitely won't be an issue.

Thanks for all the advice, I definitely feel a lot more confident now about doing this. :)

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 6:52 pm 
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Location: Grand Haven, MI
Doing a bottom job is something I will need to do probably this winter as I just bought a 73 a month ago. There are a lot of small little cracks in the paint all along he outside of the hulls that I think would be an easy fix with some sanding and new gel coat, but there are also many little cracks in the textured areas on top of the hulls that I would really like to know a good way of cleaning this up when I refinish my hulls. Otherwise they are in good shape with no soft spots.

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