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Permalink Reply by Bryan McDade on July 26, 2009 at 5:21pm

Hi, yeah I used it on my boat and I like the stuff. It is not that hard to install and has a nice finish when done. I used it on another boat awhile ago and it stood up to a lot of abuse. The finish will not stay looking perfect for too long but what does. I bought mine at TAP plastics and this is the only place locally I could find it. I have seen a black color but mine only came in grey. It has graphite bits in it and this must add some strength but I really do not know how much, someone here will have all the technical knowledge. If you look at some of the old threads I believe there is a full discussion on it. I give it the "thumbs up"

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Permalink Reply by Karl Mueller on July 27, 2009 at 11:37am

I've used it. It's ok. My boat's bottom goes like this--(don't laugh)

I initially used coat-it and liked it but I had a pinhole leak at the chine. So I laid a strip of fiberglass cloth along the bottom of the boat covering where the chine batten and bottom meet. After applying epoxy to the cloth and letting it cure a couple days I reapplied a layer of coat it. It did not cure fully over the fiberglass-actually anywhere along the bottom. I scraped it off and then removed the remaining gunk. That was really tough on my knuckles. I then used gluv-it and it cured up nicely. Since then, I put on a layer of UHMW as well.

So in my experience, the coat-it was nice provided it wasn't overlaid on fiberglass. The one thing I don't like is the color. If you plan on putting on a UHMW or other skid shoe it is a lot easier if you can see the existing screw line on bottom. You can see though the gluv-it-not so with the coat it. I prefer gluv-it. The one thing coat it has over gluv-it in my experience is that the coat it is thicker and less runny making application easier. As for the graphite adding strength-it might. I don't know.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Dearing on July 27, 2009 at 3:18pm

The way I understand it (although I may be wrong) is that coat-it and gluv-it are for aluminum boat bottoms not wood boat bottoms. I think both these products are supposed to be applied to the bottom of aluminum boats to provide a slicker surface because of the way bare aluminum tend to grab rocks instead of sliding off. I don't see how it can protect in any way against impacts, it goes on too thin.

I ended up with a glass/graphite kit from Ray Heater on my boat after pulling off the UHMV I first installed on it. With only the UHMV on the bottom whatever I hit transferred right through the bottom to the inside of the floor in the form of impact fractures, and on one brutal hit, a broken rib. Rays kit stiffened the whole boat up nicely, and along with the glass I put on the inside of the front floor, the boat seems to be holding up nicely. I will admit though that the Woodie sees pretty light use these days since I bought my Aluminum Willie quite a few years ago.

Mike

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Permalink Reply by Joseph Podesta on July 27, 2009 at 4:54pm

Thanks everyone I think I am sticking with graphite/glass for now. I will mostly be running the Yuba and Sac rivers which are broad with small stones. If I decide to take her up Oregon way I will install a UHMV panel on the bottom. I am off coat-it after reading Karl's experience. I am building a freestone guide design from montana boat builders, she is pretty much a fiberglass gal and I would hate to run into the curing problems that Karl hit with the stuff. That would be bad. My biggest mess up so far was accidentally mixing up a batch of epoxy without adding harder. Ended up grabbing the epoxy bottle twice, long story it was hot and I was a bit wore out, the fumes seemed to go right through my resperator becuase I had a bad filter and I was most like a little high. Anyway it was a pain to fix and I learned from that mistake to go slower and make sure of what I am doing.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Knight on July 28, 2009 at 4:57am

Yeah my bottom is glass graphite combo and it seems pretty darn hard... It gets scratches but whatever it's the bottom... and I figure you could always rough it up later and fill and gouges with some more epoxy. no experience with these other products - but 20 0z. triax glass seems pretty solid.

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Permalink Reply by Randy Dersham on July 29, 2009 at 12:03pm

I think this thread has it about right vs our experience. Coat-it and Gluv-it are competitive products that are specialty epoxy combos with high viscosity made for a thick protective coating. They are not only for aluminum boat bottoms and can be used as the final coat over cloth that has been laminated and filled. We have not seen the cure problem in Coat-it that Karl mentioned. It can happen for a number of reasons.

Cloth is the big deal for extra strength. A plywood bottom soaked in epoxy will protect that outer layer from rot and toughen it up to abrasion but it will not add to the impact strength of the wood. Only additional cloth will help with that.

We now use cloth and mix our own graphite into the epoxy. The black looks great and the graphite is easy to mix. We also don't have to buy one epoxy to laminate and flow the cloth and another for the final surface.

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