Prepping for painting

A random orbital sander is a wonderful thing.

I sanded down 30 years of oxidation off the gel coat. Well, not completely, but everything looks a bit brighter. I still hate the color, and its still going to get painted.

Having sanded down the hulls, I used epoxy putty to fill in all the dings and cracks. Working with this putty is very similar to working with joint compound, just a bit stickier. All I need to do was use a putty knife to press into the scratches, then scrape the excess off. Its always best to leave putty a little high on the scratch, which will pull in a bit when it dries, and is easily sanded.

In some cases, I had to go over the dings and scratches a couple times to get it smooth.

I tried to sand everything down to a nice smoothness, using 120 and 220 grit.

I also remove the rudders and tiller system. I used a simple, quick and dirty way to beautify the tiller by spray painting everything a nice black. I don't know how well this will hold up, but it was so easy to do, that a reapplication is no big deal.

Same with the rudders. I sanded off a bunch a junk and bondo used to patch some poorly drilled holes. The rudders will still an ugly yellowish faded color. I used some white spray paint to fix that. Again, I don't know how well it will hold, but its really easy to redo.