A buddy gave me an older fiberglass canoe that he had used for Duck Hunting. It was a yellow mohawk canoe that he used cheep K-mart brown paint on to make it camo-looking. Well I’ve used 120 grit sand paper and gotten off the majority of the old brown and sanded over the dry rotted patches but I still have brown blotishes in the nooks and cracks…will any type paint remover work and not harm the fiberglass? Also after I fiberglass it and am ready to gelcoat…is hand painting or spraying better?
I think you’re trying too hard.
It doesn’t matter how it looks, as long as it is structurally sound. If you “gel-coat” it, or add glass where it’s not needed, you will just add a lot of weight.
Paint it instead
It’ll be much easier and faster to prep the boat and paint it than to apply gelcoat to an entire hull. Yes, it can be done, but you’ll probably be hating life by the time you get done sanding and buffing it.
Follow up on old canoe paint job
Thanks for the advise about gel coating. I ended up taking the canoe to a body shop of a friend to have them diamond glass it and smooth it out and do a custom paint job. I’ll have a one of a kind antique canoe paint job and it will save me hours of labor. peace, Reverand