TOPIC: Crestliner Del Rio restoration underway

Hello all,

I am jumping into a restoration of a boat. I know very little about fiberglass work in general and the same goes for working on boats.

I am planning on doing a total restoration, and would like some advice about the process. The gel coat has plenty of cracks all over the hull the top deck is plenty faded and cracked. Should I just start sanding away, until the entire hull is smooth, and then paint? Is there a special way to address the cracks? Do you all think that I would need to separate the upper deck from the hull? Or could I get away with just removing the metal band that is covering the seam? How does one go about removing the metal band? Is seems to be riveted in.

Thanks in advance. I am sure I will be checking back often!
Matt

I have a few pictures:

How do I attach more than one image at a time?

another shot of the rear

Heres a question for those who know what the stringers are supposed to look like. This is what I found under the rotted flooring. My question is, when I put new flooring down should I just put it on top of these fiberglass stringers as is? Or should there be some wooden support beams in there somewhere?

Welcome aboard Matt, let me give you a couple pointers on using the forum.

To post multiple pics in one post, make the post including one pic and hit the Submit button at the bottom. Then immediately click the Edit button, add a second pic and submit again. You can repeat this as many times as you would like.

I suggest you use the Search Forum box in the upper right hand corner. Type in paint and hit Go. This will bring up several recent threads that pretty thoroughly cover the entire process of refinishing a boat start to finish! Several very knowledgeable craftsmen were kind enough to spend a great deal of time sharing their expertise with us, I think you will find it very enlightening.

Good luck with your project and keep us posted with your progress.

Yes I have been doing a ton of reading these last few days. So much information to soak up.

Hey! Nice boat

Yes, I actualy looked at yours when I first started the restoration project on mine for pointers. I have a ton of new photo's and video from her first open water trials - what a GAS! - you'll love this boat - solid, stable, fast and handles really well in rough open water.

Not to mention, every single person who was on the lake wanted to know more about who she was and where she came from - a real head turner.

Look for an update in the main forum on del Rio Update - On the Water,

Best,

Matthew

Ok so I have done a lot of reading around here, and I am going to crave out some time to work on the boat.

I want to get to work on the gel coat. It is cracked all over. I want to be sure I am going to be going about this the right way. Based on what I have read. It sounds like I should be going over every single crack with a small cone shaped grinder, then filling with 3M marine filler? Here are a few examples of the cracks I am talking about. Obviously the big ones need the grinder treatment, but should the smaller crack get the same intensive treatment? or can I sand those ones out?

Big Cracks


Small cracks

what's the word on the cracks? are those smaller cracks what is known as "crazing"?

geekdriver wrote:

what's the word on the cracks? are those smaller cracks what is known as "crazing"?

The big ones are stress cracks and will require grinding out and re-laminating with glass- preferably from BOTH sides.

The small ones are just crazing and only need to be sanded (80 grit), the areas completely coated with epoxy spot-putty, and primed with a high-build primer.