Krylon over fibreglass...primer or not

[Drobie]

I have a white gel coated fibreglass hull. Knowing what I know about Krylon, it doesn't seem necessary to use primer first. After roughing up the surface a bit, it seems there is plenty there for paint to adhere to.

Just wanted other opinions.

[AndyKunz]

Why paint over gelcoat? Gelcoat is a lot of weight - the idea of it is to make paint unnecessary.

Andy

[Doug Forrester]

Doug
My advice is to always use the primer. It acts as an additional filler coat and, most importantly, allows you to easily see surface imperfections. Your colour coat may not show up pinholes, zits, etc. as well as a white or grey flat coat.

[Ben Diss]

I agree. I tried it once and was disappointed in finish. It didn't stick as well as I'd hoped. If you're trying to save weight, use grey primer and wetsand it until you can just barely see the white gelcoat underneath.

-Ben

[Drobie]

Originally posted by AndyKunz
Why paint over gelcoat? Gelcoat is a lot of weight - the idea of it is to make paint unnecessary.

I'm a modeler. Looks are important.

The odds of my being in a position whereby the deciding factor in a race is two coats of paint are virtually non-existent.

Besides, I'll take a bit of the gel-coat off and use a RC-Hydros ESC with BEC to compensate for the difference.

[Steven Vaccaro]

I used grey primer with a yellow finish coat. Let me tell ya, it took 8 plus coats to totally cover the grey. I now use only white primer.

[Sheltered]

I have many times used Krylon glossy white as my primer/undercoat. I've always liked the way their colors spray and especially their white. Never used it on gelcoat however.

[Steven Vaccaro]

Sheltered, they also offer a primer in white. Thats the stuff I use. Very easy to cover with a lite color primary color.