Estimate for Restoration of CD10 Exterior Gelcoat?

[wsonntag]

Its time to bring the family dingy back to yacht standard, she's towed behind 4 family yachts since my brother and it sold our McCulloch engined gokart in 1968......Anyway, it's totally chalked-out, has some serious patches of crazing and two drilled perforations on the side. It is otherwise not bashed up. I wonder if anyone has some ideas about reasonable cost hull restoration? I am not prepared to DIY fiberglass work, I have pulled off all the wood bits and have re-finished them, ready to go back on the boat, the sailing rig is complete.

Thank you very much in advance,
Bill Sonntag
SURPRISE
CD31 & CD10

[Carl Thunberg]

Since no one else has picked this one up, I'll give it a go. The short answer to your question is you should get an actual estimate from a fiberglass repair shop. I am currently in the middle of doing exactly what you have ahead of you on my Rhodes 18, but I'm doing the work myself, so I can't give you prices for labor. This will likely cost more than the boat is worth, but you probably know that already. These types of restorations can't be justified on economic grounds, but our attachment to an old family friend is more important.

I ended up grinding the gelcoat off of my Rhodes 18 completely and built it back to its original profile using epoxy thickened with low density fairing filler (the purple stuff). If you are planning on leaving the dinghy in the water, you can't use the lightweight fairing filler. That's for topsides only. This spring starts the final sanding, painting, and re-commissioning. For a CD10, I'd estimate the following labor hours:
Grinding gelcoat off - 6 hours, round to 8 to be safe.
Fairing filler - 12 hours. FYI - It took me roughly 12 hours for a longer boat, but I was only doing the topsides. 6 hours starboard, 6 hours port.
Sanding Fair - 40 hours by an amateur. Probably quarter of that for a professional.

Prep and paint - Anybody's guess depending on whether you spray it with Awlgrip, or if you roll-and-tip with Perfection or some other kind of paint.

I hope this is helpful, even if it doesn't answer your question directly.

[Bill Goldsmith]

I'm with Carl on this. I think you are looking at a prep and paint rather than gelcoat restoration. Based on Carl's estimates you are looking at thousands in labor with a pro. If this were mine, I'd look around for a conscientious high school senior with senioritis or a college kid looking to make a few dollars. Have them do all the prep (filling, fairing, sanding, priming) and then find a good yard that has a topside Awlgrip paint job ready to go and ask them and the yacht owner if they would spray the CD10 while they are spraying the big boat.

Carl, I am curious why you took off all the gelcoat. I believe a good paint job can be achieved with gelcoat in place, as long as it is prepped properly. Unless the existing gelcoat is so bad, that it is just cracking and falling off.

[Steve Laume]

Sorry double post, Steve.

[Steve Laume]

I didn't respond earlier because I had no idea how much this job would cost. If you had been closer I might have offered my services.

I did a very early CD-10 that was in about the condition you are describing, about seven years ago. There was enough crazing of the gel coat that I did not think if would buff up well, so I decided to paint. I did not attempt to remove the original gel coat.

What I did do was to sand it aggressively with course paper (60 - 80 grit) and then finer grits down to maybe 120. I then barrier coated it with unthinned West System epoxy. My thinking was that this would creep into whatever was left of the crazing cracks and bind everything together. I then sanded and added some additional epoxy to fair the hull and sanded down to 220. I did this to the entire hull, maybe not taking as much care with the final sanding below the water line.

Once the hull was prepped, I primed and sprayed the topsides with Brightsides. Although the paint is pretty badly abraded from rough company at the dinghy dock none of the crazing seems to have returned.

Feather is due for a repaint this year and I will probably opt for a two part paint with a bit more durability. The original hull treatment needs no additional work.

The suggestion of getting a paint shop to add you to a job is a great idea but painting with spray or a brush is pretty straight forward and part of what makes it easy is that there just isn't that much area to paint.

If you are capable of removing and refinishing all of the wood you would certainly be able to refurbish the hull. It is basically sanding and painting with some thicker material in the form of the epoxy, Steve.

[Dick Villamil]

I just completed restoring an old beat up CD10 so that it is like new. I learned as I went and it had a heavily crazed gelcost and a lot of rotted wood. Do not expect the West Barrier Coat barrier coat to creep into these micro cracks. Instead take a dreml tool with a cone shaped diamond bit and follow each crack through the thin gelcoat and into the underlaying glass. Then add resin thiickened with adhesive filler, sand and fair. It is worth the effort to do it yourself and not rocket science! After final fairing use 3 coats of barrier coat and then paint with the paint of choice - I like the roll and tip method. If you start now on weekends you should be able to launch in May. The hardest part was the woodworking part - the easiest part is the fiberglassing and painting. Remember - the fun part of boating is all the preparation and work on the boat.

[wsonntag]

Thank you everyone for the helpful replies. I have connected with a pro who will be completing the repairs/restoration. I'll let you know how that goes, just for sake of experience. I hope to have her prettily bobbing behind the CD31 soon, sailing amongst the yachts in the anchorage as the sun sets..........

Bill Sonntag
SURPRISE
CD31
CD10

[Carl Thunberg]

To answer your question, on my boat, the gelcoat was so badly crazed and generally deteriorated, that you could take a pen knife and flake off the gelcoat down to the matting. Mine was a very severe case. I probably should have qualified my earlier post to say that.

[Steve Laume]

If we are clearing things up, I might say that mine was not too bad. If I had gel coat cracks I would have ground them out. What I had would be better described as crazing. When I sanded, I went hard enough in the areas with the greatest amount of crazing that the gel coat became translucent. I used regular epoxy as a barrier coat not barrier coat sold as such. I was concerned that the crazing might telegraph through the epoxy but is has not happened in seven years so I believe I am fine. The main reason I believe this method worked is that the gel coat was very thin by the time I covered it. Epoxy is also pretty flexable.

If I had gel coat cracks and was going to try to repair with gel coat I would have ground them out. I can't imagine trying to grind out every bit of crazing and didn't see the need in this situation, Steve.

[Dick Villamil]

Steve - if I had read your answer a year ago it would have saved me a ton of work - however I was still working on the boat which counts as "boating hours". In a few places the cracks actually penetrated the thin outer hull of the CD10 (I have the double hull version). Once I started there was no going back - the thin gelcoat was sanded until the grey color of the laminate penetrated through the gelcoat. What I found was that the previous owner had painted the hull without repairing the cracks and after the paint was mostly removed I discovered a million more cracks - some had actually penetrated through the fiberglass. Evidently the boat was either dropped or rested on its side for an extended period. SHe is better than new now! Glad I did it because the best value was in teaching my granddaughter how to row! Next will be teaching her how to sail........

[Skeep]

Gentlemen, I guess part of this discussion applies to more than the CD 10s, but to the general fleet of fiberglass everywhere, and for that there seems a delta of needing a schooled estimate of damages on any vessel.

I've worked with fiberglass all my life in one venue or another. I think it is a matter of the condition of the stuff. And some may not know what bad looks like. My Ty has some cracks in the deck gelcoat and a bit of flaking but they're cosmetic. But then I can make that determination myself. Some cannot. Thus, the need for quasi - professional survey of a gelcoat perhaps.

The other part is that with emerging products, the fixes are more diverse as several of you have mentioned. I am monitoring some of these conversations to get your schooled impression on the products, thanks!

[Carl Thunberg]

So, what are these emerging products? A quick summary would be very helpful. My only experience is with the West System Epoxy and the various low/high density fillers.