Brightsides poly finishing

I have two coats of Interlux Brightsides paint on the outside of my Sassafras, and I'm getting some orange peel after each coat.  I can very gently wet sand it smooth-ish with 600 grit sandpaper, and it is smooth, but a dull finish...

What's the best way to get a smooth finish in the final coat of this polyurethene paint?  Do I just wet sand at 600 and then something higher, like 1000 grit sandpaper after the final coat?  Or is there some other tip to get a good looking final coat of poly?

Thanks!


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RE: Brightsides poly finishing

   I just finished painting my Peeler with Epiphanes Poly, pretty much the same type of paint.  It is deep blue.  I did two coats of primer and then four coats of paint.  I lightly sanded the first two coats with 400 grit dry.  I also used scotchbrite pads.    For the last coat make sure you are super clean and low humidity.  You might be sanding with too fine of a grit so the paint is not grabbing the surface as good.  You dont want to sand the final coat if you want a high gloss.  Also, I used foam rollers and my wife followed with foam brushes to tip it all out.  That worked out great and we got a pretty nice finish.   This was my first boat that I painted so I dont have the experience that others have on this topic..  All of my 5 other builds were 100% bright.  Hopefully someone else will give more advice for you!  Good luck!

RE: Brightsides poly finishing

Thanks SurferBill for the response.  I'm hoping I can get a finish as good as it sounds like you did!

Can anybody else confirm - the goal is to get things smooth-ish enough in the first few coats of the paint so that the final coat goes on and isn't sanded at all?  Or anybody else have any advice at all?

Separately - are there other boatbuilders forums that I should be looking at?  I love CLC, but these 'forums' are a bit archaic.  :)

 

Thanks!

 

RE: Brightsides poly finishing

If they were truly archaic they'd be "fora". Lingua mortua sola lingua bona est.

Language aside, what are you looking for? There's no end of good venues, but this is the only one aimed at the general CLC builder population. There's also ones for specific CLC boats, but this is the one for any and all CLC boats. Are you looking for generic or specific boatbuilding?

Laszlo

 

RE: Brightsides poly finishing

   jontallon, yes, the idea is that you don't need to sand your last coat - it goes on clean, dries, and you have a nice bright finish.

At least with my hull, the last coat was of course the only time that a couple of flies decided to commit suicide by landing in the fresh paint.  At least they had the decency to land in a spot nobody will notice but me!

RE: Brightsides poly finishing

You did not describe the method you used to apply the Brightsides, so all I can do is describe the techniques we used to paint my Peeler Skiff.  We followed the guidelines described in Painting with Marine Polyurethanes on this site.  They worked like a charm with no orange-peeling and left us with a smooth, shiny, hard finish.  Specifically we:

  1. Applied two coats of Interlux PreKote, sanding with 120 grit between coats.
  2. Applied three coats of Interlux Brightsides, wet sanding with 320 grit between coats.
  3. To ensure that each coat of Brightsides was not too thick we thinned the Brightsides with about 10% Interlux 333 Brushing Liquid.  It is very important not to put on too much paint with each coat.  I believe that thick coats are more prone to runs and orange-peeling.  Many thin coats are preferable to fewer thick coats and It is important to give each coat sufficient time to cure (at least 16 hours) before adding the next.
  4. Wet sanded the final coat with 320 grit and used an automotive buffer with rubbing compound to bring back the shine after wet sanding.

We were thrilled with the final results.  Some of our friends compared the resulting finish to an enameled refrigerator.

RE: Brightsides poly finishing

Unless you are polishing the boat do not use the smaller grit papers. The sanding roughens the surface so the paint or finish molocules can girp. For large chain polymer or thicker finishes the finer grits do now allow enough ridge for the finish to sink into.

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