Let the painting begin!

[emkay]

This has been a busy week, I stripped the bottom and boot stripe, faired and barrier coated the keel, barrier coated the rudder, and painted the bottom today, and tried an experiment with the topsides. I painted the transom, no thinner. The paint is Pettit Easypoxy Ocean Blue. I did roll and tip, roll with a thin foam roller, and tip with a very expensive badger brush, and I have brush strokes. Also you can see two different names (sawdust and kathleen) as well as rochester still in there, it's raised in the gelcoat, 30 years of stickers will do that. I guess I have to just cover up with mine. It won't be perfect but they are nearly impossible to sand out. What I have read about this paint is that it's very forgiving and thinning usually isn't necessary. Well either it is or I have to work on my technique. Tomorrow I'm going to sand it, and try again with an experimental pane of glass (got LOTS of those laying around) the brush, thinner, and a foam brush too. Very happy with the color and the gloss though! Could not be happier with the color, pictures don't do it justice. I'm going with the Maine Sail CS36 scheme in case it looks familiar

 

[Ed Schenck]

Unless it is really thick you should not have to thin. But from the brush strokes it looks like it does need thinned. You doubtless know that you cannot paint in the sun. And not right after the sun set on the side you are working on. With the right consistency and in the shade it should look like a spray job. Of course I have only worked with shades of white and always Interlux. The rest of your work looks really good.

 

[rardiH36]

I don't know about the epoxy paints, but at least for two-part polyurethane, something else to consider which also restricts prime painting time. A good time to do the painting normally is near the end of the day when the sun is not bearing down and the air is cooler. But if before the paint sets up enough, night dew begins to form, the dew will ruin the gloss. I ran into this when I did my boom last fall. Maybe because the aluminum underneath cools quickly when the sun goes down, it attracted dew faster than gelcoat/fiberglass. Anyway when I left the boat at dusk, I was feeling good about the fine second coat of Interlux Perfection on my boom. The next morning it looked like I painted it with a white primer. Only afterwards did I find on Interlux's website warnings about evening dew.

 

[sandpiper10471]

I haven't used Easypoxy paint so cannot comment specifically. I have used Perfection and
Awlgrip with roll and tip. The big trick is TWO expensive badger brushes. Keep them really well thinned. ie. Leave one in thinner while tipping with the other. As soon as the tipping brush starts getting sticky or leaving strokes, switch brushes. That stuff goes on incredibly thin. When rolling, this is a good case of less is more.

 

[Jimboyyy]

I used the Easypoxy on my C22 and found that it worked well with the Easypoxy primer then the top coat of gloss. I did not tip and roll as I was painting non skid. I did not paint the transom. Whenever I paint the H27 I will be using the Kiwi Grip for the non skid.

 

[emkay]

Ok, first coat of color is on, and it's a 30'er. better than my first attempt on the transom but still not good enough. I need a helper, and I need more practice. Luckily I have 3 quarts and it takes only one quart per coat, so coat, sand, coat, sand, coat and done. Hopefully I'll get it right by the 3rd coat. Doing it myself is not going to work next time.

 

[sandpiper10471]

Great reflection!!! When I rolled and tipped I used white which didn't show up the brush marks nearly as badly as a dark colour does. The sanding between coats made them far more obvious. An hour or so after finishing the hull, rain came down and dulled the starboard side. No matter how hard I wet sanded, buffed and waxed, that side never acquired the same gloss. However, if I were doing it again, I wouldn't worry so much about the brush marks etc. I would sand down the last coat and then put on a clear coat.

Interestingly, after many years, she still looks just as fine as the day she was painted AND the brush marks are all but gone. That two part paint shrinks something crazy like 80% of its volume as it cures. That shrinkage will squeeze out many of the brush marks you see today.

 

[emkay]

It's not 2 part, it's Pettit Easypoxy.

 

[sandpiper10471]

As I said, I haven't used Easypoxy. From your gloss, I was assuming it was a two part paint. Maybe the tipping rules don't work as well with this product.

 

[emkay]

Sand out the brush marks (sanded most of the paint off!), spray 2 coats, looks good, not great. I'm going to leave it alone for awhile (after putting stripes on of course) then wetsand and buff it either right before it goes in the water (couple weeks) or next year after the paint has a chance to cure.

 

[fnuttersny]

BEAUTIFUL....btw I think I stoped in your boat yard 2 years ago when my son was at sunny buff..those cement towers look familier..cheers your neighbor way down stream on the hudson in beacon ny...cheers frank

 

[TDudley]

Your boat looks great. Im not sure what you are worried about. It looks a whole lot better than mine does right now. I have a couple questions for you though (I hope this is not considered a hijacking).

It looks like we have the same boat. I have a 27 1981. What year is yours?

Did I read you right when you said it took 3 quarts of paint to do the topsides? THe way it sounded was that it took 1 quart for one coat and you put on 3 coats which equals 3 quarts. Am I reading you correctly.

Can you provide a material list?

Lastly, did you paint your decks? If not do you have plans to do so?

Again, the boat looks real nice. Maybe with some help from you while its fresh in your mind, I can get mine done this summer.

 

[emkay]

It actually took less than 3 quarts, about 2 1/3 for 3 coats. I plan on doing the deck soon. It's an '80. I used 10 120 grit sanding disks and 10 220, a quart of thinner (mostly to clean the gun, very little in the paint) and a couple rolls of tape.

 

[Seasick1]

What type of spray gun did you use? We're thinking about painting our boat and the rolling/tipping thing.... even with help I'm not sure how well we'd do and I only want to do this once. Given that we've never done anything like this before I realize that it's highly unlikely that we're going to get away with painting just once.

 

[emkay]

Harbor freight $20 special (on sale for $12 awhile ago) I would recommend getting the $40 HVLP special with the regulator on the gun, it will provide a better finish and be easier to use.

Boot stripes painted, still need to do the cove stripe, I'm doing that in vinyl but the stuff I bought was too fat...

 

[Seasick1]

Your boat looks really great! Have you ever spray painted before? I'm just wondering how steep the learning curve is.

 

[emkay]

Not with air pressure before, I'm quite good with a rattle can, I've painted a couple race cars with them and gotten excellent results

 

[Jimboyyy]

Wow she looks really good Emkay! I will be painting my cove stripe and non skid later in the year.