MacGregorSailors.com

Hello all, I have 2 questions for you. I am tryign to "restore" my 26x a bit. I noticed a few things I was hopeing to get some help with.

1) I need to wash off the outside - top to bottom front to back. Specifically the cockpit needs some love - how to you do this? I was thinking some sort of scrub brush on a broom handle, and some sort of soap solution - ideas? Should I apply some sort of treatment after I wash it off, like a wax or something?

2) the black strip on the top 1/2 of hull (about 1.5 inch wide), has a white sort of faded color about it - the second it gets wet it turns pure black - I suspect it is some sort of oxidation, or or deterioration of the coating. Is there something I can use to to clean this up?

3) is there anything I should/could use on the hull?

4) there are a lot of spots on the outside where the white pain is chipped of - and it reveals a grayish color underneath can I paint over this, or is there some other concern to be aware of? The chips are small, less then 1/4 inch each.

5) would it be a good idea or bad, to put silicone around the inside and or out side of the windows? They seem a likely place water would leak in.

Hey Kevin,
I went over to another member on this froum's place to look at his boat last week and asked how he kept his textured portions of the top of the hull so clean. He took me in his shop and showed me his home made tool. He took two horse brushes (wood backed) and glued them together side by side so it made a really wide one. The backs were covered with hook velcro and he attaches it to his buffer. Just wet the hull down and apply a little soap and buff away. What a great idea!! Now I just have to explain to my horses why they haven't got brushed lately

JT ..

I finally had to clean the boat myself - the kids were nowhere to be found. I found a soft car wash type brush is pretty useless; a stiff bristle scrubrush is needed. West Marine or similar stores have all the deck wash products you are willing to pay dearly for - but they do work. As far as the black strip, if oxidized, a rubbing compound would help, I may try a wash and wax first.

kevinnem wrote:1) I need to wash off the outside - top to bottom front to back. Specifically the cockpit needs some love - how to you do this? I was thinking some sort of scrub brush on a broom handle, and some sort of soap solution - ideas? Should I apply some sort of treatment after I wash it off, like a wax or something?

Stiff brush with some mild soap. Boat soap is good for fiberglass. I have also used Simple Green.
After it's clean, use a good wax on the parts that you don't step on. NEVER wax areas where you walk or need grip. It will help keep dirt off in the future.
This Stuff has good reviews.

2) the black strip on the top 1/2 of hull (about 1.5 inch wide), has a white sort of faded color about it - the second it gets wet it turns pure black - I suspect it is some sort of validations, or or deterioration of the coating. Is there something I can use to to clean this up?

I have used wax on this. Others have used different products. Try searching the forum.

3) is there anything I should/could use on the hull?

I just finished cleaning/waxing my faster blue hull. I use a buffer I bought at Costco for cheap. Rub in the wax and buff it off. Shines like a mirror and looks brand new now.

4) there are a lot of spots on the outside where the white pain is chipped of - and it reveals a grayish color underneath can I paint over this, or is there some other concern to be aware of? The chips are small, less then 1/4 inch each.

There is no paint on our boats. There IS a white gelcoat. I'll defer to other experts. If it were me, I'd touch it up with some white enamel.

5) would it be a good idea or bad, to put silicone around the inside and or out side of the windows? They seem a likely place water would leak in.

Bad idea to use silicone. It's my understanding that it doesn't stand up to UV and marine environments. Use 3M type of sealant. See this chart.

X 2 what Russ said.. I did use Bartenders Friend ( Very Mild Scouring powder ) on my non slip a couple times, it worked well.. I used a stiff brush..
90 % of the time I use car wash soap and a brush and my cheap 1700 lb. electric power washer..

Use a carwash/boatwash and wash as per the car, use a hard bristled brush on the deck grip parts. then, what you want to do is get rid of the oxidization. This will really bring your boat back looking like new and is easy to do. I recently did mine and was very happy with the way it turned out. Its also not very hard work since all you do is kind of wipe it on, and then buff it off.
If your in a hot climate, the black stripe is always going to drive you mad. Here it oxidizes in about three weeks after you polish and wax it. What I recently realized is that gelcoat deoxidizer is the easiest way to keep it looking nice (I'v tried lots of polishes and that is much harder work!)
This is the stuff I used for this and my whole boat :
https://www.whitworths.com.au/main_item ... lutePage=1
Easy work, although I recommend a coat of wax afterwoods

You can use paint to touch up your boat if you want. ON my last boat I used bog standard house paint which I colour matched at the hardware store and it worked okay,,
But a more proffesional (and much easier than you think) way to do it, is to use Gelcoat, actually dont use gelcoat, use Flowcoat.
http://www.biasboating.com.au/SearchRes ... at&Submit=

See the last coupla posts on this thread to see the work I just did with it - It is very easy to fix any chips, scratches in your gelcoat with this. And it wont turn yellow etc because it is actually gelcoat
http://www.biasboating.com.au/SearchRes ... at&Submit=


See the last coupla posts here: http://www.macgregorsailors.com/forum/v ... 1&start=15

whats the general feeling of gel coat depths on these boats (x in my case) as I have a few marks in the cockpit area that show, i assume black fibreglassing underneath? seems pretty thin? How deep is the bow area?

One tip - the hatch runners go black and powdery as we all know, I found using a scouring pad easily takes off the surface grime back to pristine white, leaving no marks.

From what I saw, the gelcoat on the hull (the bow at least) is at least twice as thick as it is in cockpit areas, the sliding hatch etc. Roger could probably have given us a bit more gelcoat I reckon, but it is adequate.

It is easy to repair chips etc with flowcoat as I said in that other thread. Gelcoat is designed to be sprayed inside a mold and then have a boat built on it. If you use it for repairs (i'e not in a mold), you will have to wait ages for it to dry properly. Flowcoat is gelcoat but with a wax in it which comes to the surface once its painted on and this covers it. Flowcoat drys heaps quicker and as I just learnt, is real easy to work with. Larger areas I'd want to colour match and getting that right would be a pain I imagine, but small chips, gouges etc will be fine with the standard white.

If you have a gouge like I did in that photo on the other thread, just get some heavy grit paper like 60 or whatever and widen the gouge slightly getting rid of the rough edges etc. Then clean it out, mix a little flowcoat and paint it on so it is slightly raised above the original surface. Wait at least 3 or 4 hours or preferably the next day, and then use say 120 grit to level it down, then work up, I think I used 360 grit then a bit of 600 and then wet and dry 1200 and then 2000 (you only need a small piece of each paper) Then polish and wax.

A very interesting article about gelcoat can be found below, which explains why the Macs Racoon stripes are always going to be a pain in the butt for those of us that live in high UV climates. Same reason I'd never buy a blue or black one, although, the State I live in, has the highest UV in the world and if I were in Canada, UK, colder parts of the US etc, I guess its different, and maybe I'd think about it ( going a bit slower wouldnt bother me )
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j ... AN2GWJsIvw

I Have installed 2 through hulls beneath the water line and I believe they spray the deck mold Gel Coat thinner than the hull...

Re cruddy hatch runners.

I was annoyed that my less then one year old boat had mold on the plastic outside runners. I finally placed white vinyl tape on some of them. Looks like new. No cleaning. I added nonskid tape to the top ones.
Problem solved.

Ixneigh

Ixneigh wrote:Re cruddy hatch runners.

I was annoyed that my less then one year old boat had mold on the plastic outside runners. I finally placed white vinyl tape on some of them. Looks like new. No cleaning. I added nonskid tape to the top ones.
Problem solved.

Ixneigh

SOFTSCRUB with bleach does wonders with very little scrubbing...

JMHO!

BADDOG

A bit of water and a Brillo pad brings those plastic runners back to new in a flash.

Just been looking at a coupla chips on my sliding hatch - A correction on what I said earlier. The bow (and I guess the rest of the hull) gelcoat is not twice, but at least 4 or 5 times thicker than whats on the sliding hatch....

Hey everyone

Just wanted to give you all an update on this. I had a noob experiance this weekend, based on this thread.

I started by spraying it down with "spray nine", and giving it a quick rub down with a sponge, then rinsing off with water. This seemed like the right thing to do as using the polisher on dirt seems like a bad idea. I did this by hand, and would suggest anyone doing this in the future use a mop on a broom stick, and maybe a pressure washer. One huge benefit to doing it by hand is that it forces you to look over the whole of your hull for issue - I found one scrape that is really deep - in to fiber glass. any suggestions on what to "fill " it with?" (on hull, will be underwater, at times).

Then I used the 3m heavy oxidation stuff. I applied it via a 22$ buffer I bought at Canadian tire (aka like a Canadian Walmart). I can't imagine putting this on by hand, the buffer works great though. you need to work in small areas, about 2 foot by 1 foot because you need to wipe it off as soon as your done polishing.

I have not worked on the topside yet, but as for the hull it was a HUGE success - it easily took 10 years off the apparent life of the boat. on the top side I will be using the starbrite non-slip cleaner- and also have some compound form 3m for the rubber rub-rail.

we did a bunch of cleaning on the inside as well (it was trashed), it is looking a lot better now. a few more noob-questions came up . like for example,

Is there a built in bilge pump?

What fuel does the "alcohol" store use? I was at the store in the camping section and all I could find was "white gas" (naptha) is that the same thing?

I did have a sort -of rough brush , and was thinking about using it on the hull, and topside - I felt it was a bit harsh for the hull, was I wrong?

My boat has bottom pain on it, and it seems even thought it had been washed, every time my sponge, or buffer hit it, it would suck some black off it- is this normal?

next Sunday, I am putting her on the water, so it will be the challenges of rigging, and the motor (also have to rebuild the roller fuller). FUN TIMES!