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Preparing to Paint "There's only two proper colors to paint a boat, white and black, and no damn fool would ever paint a boat black" -Tristan Jones |
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Here she is dirty, scratched, cracked, and dented with a fine tannin stain from Black Creek, where she had been stored until I brought her down the river. I spent the winter working on internal systems and getting things livable, but spring time in Northeast Florida is time for painting; low humidity and moderate temperatures. Most books I saw said use 60-80 grit sand paper. That's crap. Go rough, if you're applying a barrier coat with your bottom paint you're going to end up applying every bit of 8 coats or more; that will cover a lot of slop. Use a variable speed grinder sander available from Harbor Freight Tools for about 30 bucks and a soft pad with Velcro sandpaper (available at most body shop supply stores) so your grinder can work around curves and corners without digging in. Rough is good, "Bottom Dave" here in the yard, uses 16 grit. That's a little aggressive for an amateur such as myself, but 50 grit worked like a champ. A respirator is a must; bottom paint is filled with all kinds of nasty stuff that will kill you eventually (heavy metals, pesticides etc...)
My keel is a lead casting. After sanding it bare it needed to be primed before the barrier coat was applied. Again, I followed the Interlux guide and used the Vinyl-Lux primer, which turned my keel a fine color of yellow. Painting Below the Waterline:
Painting Above the Waterline:
BEFORE
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AFTER The Cost: Vinyl-Lux Primewash: $40.00 Sand paper, sanding pad, tape, pan, mixing cups, roller pans, rollers, roller pads, etc...: $340.00 InterProtect 2000E x 5: $400.00 Perfection topside paint: Oyster White x 4: $248.00 Black: $62.00 202 Fiberglass Solvent x 4: $64.00 355 Vinyl-Lux Solvent: $16.00 2333N Perfection thinner x 2: $32.00 Name & Hailing port vinyl stickers: $400.00 Bottom Paint: Freebie Grand Total: $1602.00 and as many man-hours as necessary to finish the job, in my case 3 1/2 months on the hard.
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