Standard fiberglass vs. full body paint - scratch durability

fortytwo wrote:
Consider color carefully for full body paint. There's a trend to make them stand out from plain old fiberglass by using dark colors. Bright, shiny, and destructively hot. The side of an RV with black or near black paint will be 30-40 degrees hotter than white. It will also cause premature failure of the fiberglass.

In my view Alpha had it right - all white. The swirly decals are an attractive marketing ploy, but no decal exposed to constant sun will last more than a half dozen years before obvious deterioration.

As others have indicated, there's two types of fiberglass: gel coat over fiberglass matte, and filon. Filon is simply a pretty thin (compared to any laid up fiberglass) glass/fiber panel with a color added to the final coat. It's never slick and shiny like fiberglass, even when new. Gel coated fiberglass is the easiest to repair and polish out scratches. It can get old and chalky if not treated with some type of wax, but in most cases can be polished back to a good shine by a buffer or one of the many new silicon finishes.

However, if appearance is important enough.....

Good point on the dark finishes.

Consider color carefully for full body paint. There's a trend to make them stand out from plain old fiberglass by using dark colors. Bright, shiny, and destructively hot. The side of an RV with black or near black paint will be 30-40 degrees hotter than white. It will also cause premature failure of the fiberglass.

In my view Alpha had it right - all white. The swirly decals are an attractive marketing ploy, but no decal exposed to constant sun will last more than a half dozen years before obvious deterioration.

As others have indicated, there's two types of fiberglass: gel coat over fiberglass matte, and filon. Filon is simply a pretty thin (compared to any laid up fiberglass) glass/fiber panel with a color added to the final coat. It's never slick and shiny like fiberglass, even when new. Gel coated fiberglass is the easiest to repair and polish out scratches. It can get old and chalky if not treated with some type of wax, but in most cases can be polished back to a good shine by a buffer or one of the many new silicon finishes.

However, if appearance is important enough.....

Cool, thanks for the input everyone!

Fiberglass with gel coat will be more durable, but on the other hand Full body paint will be cheaper to repair scratches and minor problems on the surface.

KristinU wrote:
What would be more durable against scratches and scuffs from branches and bikes and stuff - full body paint or the standard fiberglass gel coat?

You should first understand that "gelcoat" as refers to RV siding is often very different in composition, durability, and thickness from that used in molded fiberglass operations like boatbuilding and some small molded trailers.

With filon-type siding typically used on stick-built RV's, many such coatings are very thin, which means that there's limited ability to polish out those scratches that do occur.

Low quality fiberglass siding will chalk in just a few years unless the owner really keeps on top of the issue with very frequent waxings. A good quality paint job is less maintenance intensive and certainly looks nicer.

Not sure but don't most full body paints have clear coat as a top coat?

My experience from boats and an egg fiberglass trailer would be the gel coat would be more durable from scuffing and scratching. It is generally thicker than paint and the scuffs and scratches could be rubbed out. Also a white gel coat may not show the scuffs and scratches as much as a metallic darker paint.

I've seen gel coats of various quality. Some are very susceptible to weathering and others are harder and more rugged. The depth can be variable too.