Re: dinghy project

Posted by Laszlo on Nov 14, 2004

Shawn,

We need one more bit of info - what quality of finish are you going for? Workboat? Showroom? Or something in between?

In general, for durability you can't go wrong with a layer of light (4 oz) fiberglass/epoxy on at least the outside bottom. But that would still need to be painted or varnished afterwards.

A workboat finish is the easiest to apply and maintain (which is why working boats have them - the owners don't have the time or money to fool around with sanding and filling and expensive paints). You can get a perfectly good workboat finish by filling any dings with a good waterproof putty (epoxy & phenolic microballoons for non-structural repairs, epoxy & woodflour for structural ones), sanding everything with #120 sandpaper and applying hardware store porch paint. Use a flat, not gloss or semi-gloss.

If you want a showroom finish, you'd still fix the dings, but then you'd spend a lot more time sanding to a smoother finish. Before you actually got to the paint, you'd need to apply multiple coats of primer and sand each one smooth. The trick is to apply primer mostly in the low spots and sand down the high. The result will be a very smooth surface ready to accept the paint. Then, for highest quality, you'd apply the paint with a sprayer. You can get results that are just about as good by using a roller and tipping it out with a brush.

If you want to use a high end paint there are many choices. Check out CLC's paint page for some. Others are System 3's 2 -part paints. There's many others. For the workboat finish, there's also exterior latex or oil. The exterior house paints (latex, porch paints, oils, etc.) may not be as durable as some of the cross-linked 2-parters, but they're cheap enough so that it's not a big deal to just repaint the boat each year, especially if it's just a workboat finish.

Hope this helps,

Laszlo

In Response to: dinghy project by Shawn on Nov 13, 2004

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