Winter 2004-05

More Prep Work

After the primer had cured I had yet more prep work to deal with. First I had to sand then entire boat to 320 grit in preparation for the super thin topcoat paint. This process had to be done entirely by hand in order to be sure that I didn't burn through the primer coats. I used the 3M Stickit sanding system, using their nice soft sanding block and sanded first with 220 grit and then with 320 grit. Sanding the decks took the better part of an entire day. The hull was quicker, as Tim helped out and between the two of us we had the hull done in just a couple of hours.

Next I spent a couple of afternoons masking off the areas for the borders on deck which would be painted white. This took quite some time as I tried to mask out a border around all deck hardware that I expected to put back on the deck. Not only do I like this look, but it makes subsequent repainting of the nonskid areas much easier. I initially drew out general guidelines using a set of dividers—a half inch around hardware, and an inch and a half for the general margins. I then neatened up the lines and adjusted them as necessary by eye when I placed the tape. At all corners I cut a smooth round using a quarter as a guide. Finally, I replaced the plastic used to cover all of the openings on deck.

Two Stage Process

Painting the hull and deck was a two-stage process. First Tim and I attacked the decks. Then we masked off the decks and painted the hull. To this end I masked off the hull using large sheets of plastic taped to the toerail. We set up staging, and while Tim got the topcoat paint and gun ready I vacumed, and tacked off the boat.

Two Days of Deck Paint

We followed the same general procedure with the topcoat as we did with the decks, starting by spraying the house, then the cockpit, and finally the decks. As we started the first coat on the house, the paint was laying down beautifully with an incredible gloss and not a hint of orange peel. We proceeded around the boat then put the gun aside to let the paint tack up before the next coat. At that point I noticed huge sags on both sides of the house area! What a disappointment!

We quickly regrouped however, and resigned ourselves to the fact that we would need to sand and repaint the house. We adjusted the flow to put a lighter first coat of paint down and proceded to spray the cockpit. Though it was a challenging space to spray, Tim did a great job and we put down three nice coats with about 45 minutes between to allow the paint to tack. We then moved on to the margin areas of the decks. Again we put down three coats before calling it a day.

I returned the next morning to sand out the house area and found that Tim had gotten an early start on that project. I helped finish up the sanding and vacumed and tacked again. We resprayed the house area, this time being very careful not to overload the paint, and got three very nice coats down. We did have a couple of small runs, and also an area that ended up with a huge amount of dust in it—it was sanding dust that had gotten trapped between the house and the interior liner at the bottom of the main deadlight openings in the main saloon. Despite these flaws the overall result was spectacular.

The Dark Green

I was most excited to see the new dark green hull. The day after finishing the decks, I returned to the shop to get the hull painted. With Tim's help I carefully rolled out some plastic sheet over the decks. I placed some scrpa two-by-four along the edges of the house to help keep the plastic off the fresh (first cure stage) paint wherever possible. We then carefully taped it to the toerail being sure that there were no gaps anywhere where the dark green overspray could get onto the fresh white paint.

I then solvent washed and tacked off the hull while Tim vacumed the shop floor and then hosed it down. We mixed up the paint, set the gun's flow for a very light first coat and started spraying. Even though the paint looked pretty awful with just one coat—thin and way too light in color—the transformation was instant and dramatic. After working our way around the boat we let the first coat flash off for about 30 minutes or so before beginning the next coat.

We applied two more slightly heavier coats for a total of three coats. The second coat really gave a good sense of how the boat would look when finished. Coverage was still a little light, but the color was much closer to what I had expected based on the color chip.

Because the first coat was so light, it was relatively easy for Tim to see where he was spraying when applying the second coat. The third coat however, was much more difficult as the color change was not very dramatic between the second and third coats. Additionally the air was quite full of overspray haze and the sun was streaming into the shop further reducing visability. To help keep track of where he had sprayed, Tim painted small guide marks down into the bottom paint area to show where he was along the hull.

The paint leveled quite well, and despite a small amount of orange peel to the finish and a couple annoying runs and minor flaws the paint looked spectacular. The gloss was out of this world, the color was exactly what I had envisioned, and the overall impact was truly staggering.

Click here to view a short video clip. (DIVX avi format, 8.5meg)

Boot Top

Tim agreed to help strike the new waterline and bootop, as he has done this several times before and has a good eye for it. We followed the general process he used on Glissando though we did have some problems getting the initial set up just right, as the boat was not exactly level from side to side. Eventually however, we prevailed and struck a boot of about 2 inches "visable height." That is to say that the boot appears to be about 2 inches tall when viewed from the side of the boat. Due to the curvature of the hull, of course, the stripe's actual thickness varies from spot to spot.

Once the boot was taped I began the process of laying on the silver Awlgrip paint that we had chosen for the application. This turned out to be a real nightmare as the metallic paint did not flow or cover particularly well when applied with a brush. Later experience spraying the paint on the ports and deadlight frames showed that the metallic paint really needs to be sprayed—spray application was great with spectacular coverage and a great even metallic sheen. Ultimately I ended up applying 5 coats(!) of the paint and the final result is not that great. I will likely spray the boot next winter.

Nonskid

The final job in getting the boat painted was to paint the nonskid on deck. The first step was to remask all of the nonskid areas. I then had to sand some minor white overspray from the nonskid areas. Once this was done I vacumed the decks and tacked off. I then prepared the paint.

I chose Petit's Easypoxy one-part polyurethane paint mixed with flattening agent and polymeric nonskid beads. I wanted a neutral grey color that was not too dark and after much thought I ended up mixing my own color using Petit's Platinum and Mist Gray. For the first coat I used a 50-50 mix of the two colors, which a small sample had shown to be close to what I envisioned. However, after rolling it on the large deck areas, I decided that it was too dark and industrial looking. I had planned two coats anyway however, so I resolved to lightent the mix for the second coat. The photo shows the lighter grey being painted over the darker first coat to show the difference.

I found that the nonskid rolled on nicely using a 3/8 inch nap roller and applied a very even nonskid texture with only a few uneven areas. The second coat increased the nonskid texture and helped even it out further. I found the Pettit nonskid additive to provide a quite aggressive nonskid texture—more so than the similar Interlux product.

Who's Boat is This?

The overall effect of the repainting can't be overstated. The boat, quite literally, looks like a brand new boat. The transformation is so dramatic that I can hardly believe that it's the same boat that moved into the barn 8 months ealier. Check out the picture. . . Remeber that old thing?