Help repairing deep scratches

[Guidera48]

I am the new proud owner of a Hunter 37 cutter. This boat has a bad case of dock rash and has deep scraches in several locations on the starbord side.
I very familiar with automotive fiberglass repairs and fillers, however I am not familiar with marine product names. Can anyone sudgest what to use as filer and primer?? Eventually, the boat will be repainted after all repairs and upgrades are completed.

Also, the bottom is pressure washed and cleaned but does not look good. The boat has been out for 8 months and should be dry. Since it is going to be on the hard for several months, in a public area, ( my business rear parking lot), I wanted to paint it for apearance sake. I dont want to paint it with antifouling paint yet. Is there an other paint that I can aply to have a protective coat and be able to apply the required fouling paint before launching??

Thanks

[Guidera48]

Sorry I missed this picture

[scottyt]

well for filler there are lots of options. the simplest route is gel coat paste from west marine, thicken it some with micro balloons. or epoxy with micro ballons, either way use a spreader to apply the paste you make to fill the scratches. it will take several coats with sanding and degreasing/dewaxing in between. i would use micro balloons so its easy to sand smooth, then a rolled on finish coat of what ever you used un thickened as a sealer, that you can block sand smooth, then paint.

if you go back here and search there are lots of posts on this. if you want click on my user name and view all my posts there are a few threads i have given better more complete info on as have others in the same threads

[Guidera48]

Thanks for your suggestion. I will resarch your threads,

[scottyt]

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-m...-openings.html

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-m...ent-wrong.html

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-m...ll-damage.html

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-m...ss-damage.html

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-m...g-gelcoat.html

[sailingdog]

Don't use microballons if the scratches are below the waterline. Use colloidial silica..

[scottyt]

SD the pic he put up in the second post looks like it right below the toe rail.

Guidera if you use the silica make sure you dont leave it very proud of the the surface the silica is like sanding rock, it takes a while, and is very hard to do with out sanding down the surrounding gelcoat

[sailingdog]

Originally Posted by scottyt

SD the pic he put up in the second post looks like it right below the toe rail.

Yes, I'm aware of that... I was just pointing out that below the waterline you don't want to use microballoons.

Guidera if you use the silica make sure you dont leave it very proud of the the surface the silica is like sanding rock, it takes a while, and is very hard to do with out sanding down the surrounding gelcoat

This is true.