Peeling cracking pinstripe

[Actual]

Recently took boat to fiberglass shop to have a few scratches buffed out and had the boat detailed.

I picked up the boat two weeks ago and it looked immaculate. Brought her home and covered her.

Today I uncovered for the first time since comimg home and discovered my pinstripe is cracking and peeling all the way around the boat.

What could have happened to cause this?

 

[haknslash]

Did they buff the rest of the boat or just where you had scratches? They could have got it too hot using a buffer. It's very easy to ruin pin striping or lettering with too high of speed or wrong pad.

 

[Actual]

Yeah they waxed and buffed the entire boat. What is weird is they where fine when I picked it up but severly cracked when I uncovered it today.

 

[Actual]

So the pinstripe saga rolls on a little bit further. I called my fiberglass guy he swears it already had many small cracks to begin with before he started work. He said he has seen it MANY times where the factory leaves the protective veneer on the pinstripe and over the years it adheres then begins to crack while the underlying pinstripe is good. Technically I could go out there with a pair of tweezers and pull all of the bits of veneer off and the pinstripe would look good as new.

He swears it was already cracking when he got it and frankly I can't remember if it was or wasn't. I feel I would have noticed if it was because I noticed it right away when I uncovered the boat this weekend. Either way I've gone to my local dealer to see if they will fix it since it is pretty obvious the factory did indeed leave the veneer on the pinstripe.

As for the fiberglass shop I'm still not sure what to think. He has high reviews from the locals and he came highly recommend from Will at Jetboat pilot. It's a medium sized operation and I'm dealing directly with the owner. He has been easy to work with to this point, but he is not the actual guy that did the detail on my boat. I did find out that they only buffed the repaired areas and washed/waxed the rest.

 

[haknslash]

I was going to say it might be the protective layer. I had that happen with one of my old trucks and just I just peeled it off little by little. It looked like a new pin stripe underneath. You could always restripe it. Maybe reflective silver!

 

[Murf'n'surf]

If he didn't use a solvent wipe down then it's just a byproduct of buffing. If they did use a solvent on the gel coat it's a result of the solvent breaking down the thin plastic layer and causing it to peel and crack.

Either way..... Most likely the sun would have caused this down the road.