Fairing over new fiberglass below the waterline.

[Greatest Lakes]

Working on my Columbia 9.6 and I have been scraping off old paint and re fairing the seams around my fin keel. The original application someone did was lousy, the fiberglass was basically dry on the back side and it lifted, then years and years of pathetic patch work with what apeared to be 7 different compounds. All that mess was removed. I'm using west systems, and there is no indication of water intrusion into the seam. I mixed a peanut butter consistency with micro and filled the seam before going over the top with 2" and or 4" fiberglass tape. My keel looks much smoother now and I'm completely satisfied with the adhesion. My question is, do I need to gelcoat over this, or can I simply barrier coat it and paint? Is there a better firm fairing compound? I know bondo is a bad choice.

After I'm done getting 20 years of paint off that is.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Greatest Lakes

Working on my Columbia 9.6 and I have been scraping off old paint and re fairing the seams around my fin keel. The original application someone did was lousy, the fiberglass was basically dry on the back side and it lifted, then years and years of pathetic patch work with what apeared to be 7 different compounds. All that mess was removed. I'm using west systems, and there is no indication of water intrusion into the seam. I mixed a peanut butter consistency with micro and filled the seam before going over the top with 2" and or 4" fiberglass tape. My keel looks much smoother now and I'm completely satisfied with the adhesion. My question is, do I need to gelcoat over this, or can I simply barrier coat it and paint? Is there a better firm fairing compound? I know bondo is a bad choice.

After I'm done getting 20 years of paint off that is.

Fairing Compound: it sounds like you use micro balloons by themselves? The brown stuff? And you mix that to peanut butter consistency? Not easy to do. That’s a little dry. You are supposed to mix colloidal silica with the micro balloons as well. That will make it firm. So it doesn’t drip or run. I think that’s what you mean by looking for a more firm compound. That’s the secret. There are two ingredients. Not just the one.

You definitely don’t need gelcoat over this. You don’t even need a “barrier coat”. You are using epoxy so you are good. However, the paint system that you use might require a primer. The paint manufacturer might require an epoxy primer underneath and will have one they make

[Greatest Lakes]

It's epoxy and microballoons. Consistency just enough that it doesn't run, but still spreads smoothly. Using Total Boat for bottom paint. The spartan multi season, I have fixed a half dozen or so blisters, and there are a few spots I've scraped down to gelcoat, so I figure a full barrier coat would be a good move, particularly with the rising cost of paint. Should be one more day of scraping paint, then putting on the new stuff. Hoping for a bit better speed and better handling after fixing all this stuff.

[JeffDPT]

I just finished this task. If you are happy with the surface after the micro balloon, a few coats of Barrier coat/primer ( I used Interlux 2000) , then bottom paint. If you have done the FG and fairing, the worst is over