1975 e27 new to me! freshen up?

Two initial things I think would freshen this girl up in a jiff:

1) get the proprietary Ericson blue band (just under rub rail on the hull) to shine. It's gotten a little 'chalky' in areas. Anyone have a method?

2) replace the interior cushions. Anyone have the estimated cost? and an online source that might be reasonable? If not, I'll find someone locally.

Thanks

Marcus

Suggestions

Sheer stripe. If a rubbing compound specifically for boats doesn't shine up your stripe, you might want to repaint. If any PO used any silicone-based rubber restorer on your rub rail, rest assured that it has migrated onto your sheer stripe area. You will need to use the right cleaner and surface preparations to make your new sheer stripe paint stick. Overall, this is a really easy thing to do.

Cushions: Take your old ones apart and look at the foam inside. If it is salvageable, use the appropriate cleaners for spots, smells, and mold - and LOTS of rinse water to clean them up enough to sleep on. It may not be worth your effort, but you should try this first especially if cost is going to be a big factor. (We used a wading pool and bare feet stomping out the soap out in the yard to rinse out the foam in our Nor'sea's cushion foam.) Our Ericson's foam was pretty gross so we replaced all of our cushions and pads with upgraded foam and new covers -to the tune of about $1,200 for an 1977 25' Ericson. The only thing I would suggest here is to try out some of the foam for sleeping before you buy. Ours is pretty stiff, actually too stiff for comfortable sleeping, so we use an egg-shell overlay for this.

Good luck, it's only time and money....

Steve Swann
Boise, ID

Not much can be done to a sheer stripe. It's not painted on, but in the gel.

Try some course rubbing compound then McQuires Color Restore. Or better yet for $10 buy the McQuires Color X at the car parts store-same product as color restore but has wax in it.

Some folks paint it out. Others have installed vinyl.

Let us know how it went

John

You can do a lot to restore gelcoat. Check out the following thread. This was written by a friend of mine who knows a lot about cleaning and polishing. He helped make my 20 year old Imron look like new again.

http://archives.sailboatowners.com/...7012200307.56&id=443603&ptl=#2007013143545.63