Wow, so many good details in this thread. I'm going to follow your steps as I work to restore the hull I just purchased. First, a stupid question. You made repairs to the holes, cracks, divots, etc, by fiberglass patches or epoxy putty. After that, you seemed to sand the entire hull down which got rid of the extra paint layer, but it looked beige after that, so I'm guessing that sanding took away the gelcoat color? My question is: do I need to be careful to not sand through that layer and into the fiberglass? How "hard" is it to sand through - should I be using 120 grit, or even finer?
"God does not deduct from your time on earth that time spent restoring old sailboats" (Anon.) At this rate, Kent, you will live to be 110 years old.
Alan Glos
I'm glad this thread was bumped back up to the first page. I refurbished old Sunfish and like to think I did a passable job. I'm nowhere in Kent's league, though.