Photos.... Likely will get covered in subsequent passes. 3 applications? I thought 6 was the magic number... So you made me look up on West systems - what barrier coating system are you using?
dj
Bottom Paint
- Thread starter FlimFlamII
- Start date
dj
I had thousands and thousands of those pinholes just thru the gel coat when I had my Starwind sand-blasted. I had the yard do the work so I may not recall exactly. We sand-blasted in the fall and waited until spring to apply the bottom. There was never any evidence of moisture and there were no blisters that penetrated into the glass. We faired the entire boat with an epoxy paste, I believe, to make the surface completely smooth. Then, we put on at least 3 barrier coats. I think the barrier will not fair those pinholes so you will want to fair it entirely with a thickened epoxy. It was expensive, but when I had a new smooth bottom, I didn't care about the expense.
Re-reading your post ... pinholes that you couldn't see until you started painting may be a different condition than I found. My holes were up to about an 1/8" diameter, at most, but clearly visible after sandblasting. They were also relatively easy to fill smooth because they were shallow and small. If yours are so small that you can barely see it until your first coat of epoxy is applied, I would tend to think that subsequent coats of epoxy would make them disappear.
What you can clearly see in your Photo 2 looks like what I found, so I tended to think that is what you may be dealing with. If not, how did you clear up all those tiny divots?
It's hard to know from photos exactly what you are dealing with. The white areas with the divots look like you have sanded down to gelcoat there. What are the whitish-blue blotchy areas in Bottom 5 that looks relatively smooth?
Bottom 5 was before I decided to bite the bullet and do a more complete sanding. This photo is after its been completely taken done to either the gel coat or glass.
I suspect the brownish color was a previous bottom paint since it seemed "soft". Don't know if it ever had a barrier coat. It's a 1980 boat. It only had one prior owner but he was not big on maintenance and then a bit on the "thrify" side.