Re: painted hull

Posted by Howard on Sep 28, 2004

if you are looking for durability/ease of maintenance for a boat that will be well used...you may want to consider keeping it bright all over. here's how i see it:

if you paint, when you do scratch the boat...it will scratch typically through the paint to the primer/underlying glass epoxy. depending on the colour...this shows a lot. my sense in looking at all bright boats is that they tend to hide the inevitable scratches much better becuase they do not expose a significantly different colour. so i think...the main reason for paint is that a) you simply like the look better or b) you are not happy with your underlying woodwork...so you can hide it with paint.....but that you don't do it for an "easier care" finish.

now if you do decide to paint, i would recommend that you avoid the primer if you want to make it more durable. it may take a bit more time, but the sanded epoxy is a fine substrate for the paint. the paint is much more durable against the epoxy than it is against the primer...the primer is very soft and when exposed to a scratch...tends to lift a larger area becuase the primer gets wet and breaks down.

if you do find that the primer is the way you want to go...you should sand almost all of it off and really use it only to fill pin holes and other minor imperfections. you should definitely not have primer left on the chines/keel/sheer or other areas that are very likely to get scratched.

as for the amount of paint, a quart of brightside will typically do. however, the less uniform the colour of the prepped hull, the more coats you are likely to take. (a hull with primer, by the way, tends to have a lot of non-uniformity in its colour when you sand it down properly...becuase it will leave white blotches.) the colour also makes a difference. some colours hide better in fewer coats than others. red is probably the most notorious for requiring many coast to get a uniform colour. light blues seem to hide pretty well in few coats. so i think you are probably fine with a quart for anything other than red...which may leave you very little left to work with.

anyway...hope this helps. i am sure you will make it beautiful no matter which way you go.

hs

In Response to: Re: painted hull by Homer on Sep 28, 2004

Replies:

• Re: painted hull by Howard on Sep 28, 2004