To paint the spars or not to paint the spars....

[greg_m]

Tis a problem I am dealing with at the moment. Having never had a boat with painted aluminium spars (Aluminum to you guys ) I purchased one at the beginning of the year with white painted spars.

There is lots of cancer going on under the fairly thickly applied paint of the boom along its length in patches. Once the coating is broken through it cracks and peels away leaving a white salty looking powder. Other areas are still in good shape and the paint wont budge with a heavy forceful application of the scraper.

So this is also the same with the mast and actually looks fairly shabby.

My question looking for advice is to those who have dealt with this and can shed light on what they did.

First question: strip off everything and leave bare aluminium go au natural or
Second question: repaint only the corroded areas and just make it look good with least cost/effort?

Would be interesting to hear the different views...

 

[rpludwig]

Greg, I was going to say touch up till I looked closely at your pics. That lumpy paint job looks more like sloppy house paint than a quality auto body job. I'd strip it and leave it bare. There are some really effective gel/liquid strippers on the market (over here anyway) that make it a relatively easy, (albeit messy) task. rather than the laborious scrape/wire brush method. My thoughts....

 

[shemandr]

I don't like the look of oxidized aluminum. Your painted mast seems to be bubbling. I would strip the paint off and repaint it using the correct materials and technique. I found the Interlux one part epoxy with the proper primer to work very well and produced a durable finish. I was happy with the results.

 

[Ted]

If you strip your spars, you will have to apply some sort of finish to prevent the aluminum from oxidizing. I refinished my boom last year and used a paint stripper called "Critristrip" to remove the existing paint. It was easy to apply and very effective at removing the paint. After sanding and applying the recommended primers, I used a two part epoxy topcoat paint from Interlux called Perfection. I am very happy with the results. Make sure that you follow the manufactures recommendations carefully.

 

[Leeward Rail]

Strip, inspect and leave bare imo.
Looks nasty though so you may end up painting it after cleaning it up. Not sure what that coating is. Nothing like i have seen on "real" C22s. The 3 masts have seen in person were anodized.
Did they do it differently on Jaguars or is that an old diy paint job ?

Never understood why people want to paint stuff like that. Just creates more work down the line. Then again, my idea of the ultimate boat is an unpainted aluminium pilothouse cutter.

aluminium spars (Aluminum to you guys )

Not to me and the rest of the scientifically minded world. Lets say it together... Alloooo-minny-um.

 

[greg_m]

So far I have manually scraped away the really corroded areas. That was the easy part. When i try scraping the good areas it's really tough coating.

Problem is the corrosion is from under the coating and will most likely spread over time.

Seems like from research one needs to use a "self etching" primer. Zinc Chromate is one such type I have heard about so far.

I think I will go with repainting. All the masts I have seen that are not painted are anodised. Bare aluminium left to it's own devices will corrode and turn dark grey and ergly!

I do have some Interlux Perfrection left over from painting the hull.

 

[greg_m]

Strip, inspect and leave bare imo.
Looks nasty though so you may end up painting it after cleaning it up. Not sure what that coating is. Nothing like i have seen on "real" C22s. The 3 masts have seen in person were anodized.
Did they do it differently on Jaguars or is that an old diy paint job ?

Never understood why people want to paint stuff like that. Just creates more work down the line. Then again, my idea of the ultimate boat is an unpainted aluminium pilothouse cutter.


Not to me and the rest of the scientifically minded world. Lets say it together... Alloooo-minny-um.

We have one in the marina... It's an expedition boat of at least 50 feet. Dark grey and makes me feel a bit down. Way prefer nice clean painted boats. I will add a picture to this post after I take one. It has huge steel anodes hanging in the water alongside it tied to all the metal railings ... see-ree-ass anodic/sea water electrical reactions in Simons Town here. Not sure why.

I posted in this forum because it's so active and has a large following of like minded knowledgeable perps!

This is the boom off the cheapo Theta 26 sail boat that I bought earlier this year to actually go sailing. Will be removing the mast this afternoon for Cat. C cert of fitness rating inspection. It also has a terrible paint job with runs and corrosion so the fun is only starting!

My "real" Jaguar Catalina 22 has gold anodised aluminium spars that are still in fairly good shape. (Remember they were made under licence by professional boat builders back in the good old days). It's the owners that caused the kak!

 

[Leeward Rail]

It has huge steel anodes hanging in the water alongside it tied to all the metal railings ... see-ree-ass anodic/sea water electrical reactions in Simons Town here. Not sure why.

Shore power wiring issues ?
It amazes me how often marinas and boats have crap wiring.

This is the boom off the cheapo Theta 26 sail boat that I bought earlier this year to actually go sailing.

That makes sense. Cept for this sailing thing you mention. Not sure what that is.. My new tradition seems to be parking the boat at a slip until the season is over and never using it. This year it is still in storage. I hate tasks. they seem to breed like rabbits.

My "real" Jaguar Catalina 22 has gold anodised aluminium spars that are still in fairly good shape.

Good. Being under licence, i wasnt sure how much was similar spec.

As to the grey oxidized aloominyum look. I totally understand why people want it nicer looking. I constantly fight myself with that type of choice with things. I am inherently a bit fussy when i do projects. I just built a new fence and it doesnt quite match the colour of the other pressure treated/stained fence. So now i want to cuatom stain the other to match. Hehe.
But that may mean more maintenance. And then less time.for fun like sailing.

 

[shemandr]

I regard painting a spar an off season project. I did mine in February on Long Island. There are enough warm days that a sunny place in the yard would make a suitable site.

 

[greg_m]

I regard painting a spar an off season project. I did mine in February on Long Island. There are enough warm days that a sunny place in the yard would make a suitable site.

We here in SA are still under covid lockdown.

This means under our regime no boats are allowed to leave the moorings. So no sailing but you can haul out to do maintenance.

Bizarrely, you can go play golf, go fishing, play soccer or other sports but sorry no sailing... not even on your own single handed dinghy on the local lake.

Thats government for you