Painting The Hull

[Mike Goodwin]

Prep work is 90% of the paint job , if you don't fill , prime and sand , it will look like you didn't prep the boat . The paint is always the cheapest part of a good paint job.
I fill all the cracks and dings , sand, prime, fill again if needed, sand , wipe the baot down with tack rags and then paint it .
BTW, I roll Brightsides by myself all the time . Tipping isn't always needed if you have the right roller and the paint if conditioned just right .
When it is cold and 60 is getting in that zone , you may need to add a dolop of Penetrol to may it flow better .

You can roll it out a lot thinner than you can brush it out .

[commanderpete]

Consider it practice. It will look fine once she's in the water.

My hull is ready for another paint job.

I think scrubbing the hull with household cleaners in the off-season didn't help matters. This year I used the new paint-safe Interlux cleaner. Worked quite well.

http://www.yachtpaint.com/usa//product_guide/boatcare/stain_remover.asp?ComponentID=22070&SourcePageID=6716#2

Also have to watch out for the Travelift slings. They can chew up the paint pretty good, especially new paint. I like to grab some medium size flat Fed-Ex boxes from work to put under the slings.

Forgot this year.  Oh well

Only got 4-5 years out of this job.

[Stephan]

Ah, so maybe I should have rolled it after all. My mistake was to think that the purpose of rolling is to get paint on quickly, and I thought that since I go through it with a brush anyway I might as well brush it only. I have to learn a lot...
I think I've had enough of this this season, now it's time to get her in the water. But the weather is still bad...

[commanderpete]

Saw this on another Bulletin Board. Somebody had posted a question after getting a quote of $200 a foot to paint his hull. Wanted to know why they charged the same price for powerboats, even though powerboats have more freeboard.

A guy who owns a boatshop "gouvernail" tries to explain:

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One thing is certain, sailors and powerboaters are generally different sorts of people. Powerboaters stop by or call one time and ask, "How much?" followed by "When will it be finished?" They expect the prices and dates to be real.

Sailors stop by five to fifteen times to talk about the concept of the possibility of maybe doing something to their boats when they get around to it if by then they still want to do it. They want to know about the sandpapers, thinners, fillers, primers, topcoats, number of coats, dry times, durability, possibility of blistering, colors to match their significant other's favorite pet's favorite chewtoy..which was lost many years ago but looks a lot like the corner of a photo on the cover of a magazine they have at home and thought to which we might subscribe.
Sailors usually do not actually ever get around to signing up for 80% of the work they come by to discuss and think nothing of the hours wasted by various vendors who have to set aside other tasks to endlessly chat about the sailor's dreams and ideas.

When the sailor finally does decide to have work done, the work must be scheduled between the high school graduation party for the daughter who never sails but might want to take her friends out after that party and the beginning of a series of races at the local club.

Once in the shop the sailboater will visit the sailboat and probably bring a significant friend who convinces the sailboater that the entire paintjob should be a different color and perhaps have a new stripe combination.

Wait! If the boat is being painted there is the issue of the name. A powerboater either shows up with a plastic name on a scrim which is ready to install or takes the advice to go to his favorite sign shop, buys, and delivers a ready to use name appropriate to the task.

The sailor wants to hang paper on the side of the boat, which of course the sailors mooches from the shop, and draw, with the shop's marking pens, name after name after name until the sailor has a pretty good idea of what name is perfect. Then the sailor has to hear the dissertation about painted names and plastic names and consider the possibilities. ...while consuming more time at the shop not only in labor of the guys who have to coach the sailor but just by having the boat sitting in the limited work area.

Eventually the sailor manages to agree and let the service provider actually write down a plan and that plan can be accomplished by the service man....unless the sailor calls half what through the job and asks." Is it primed yet? Can we still change our mind about the color of the paint? OH can you send that color back to your supplier or use it on something else? My baby just barfed and I love the color of the sweet potatoes speckled through that barf. You know what color I mean? Oh you don't have kids? You wouldn't understand. I will bring the barf by...."

[ebb]

I've reached hivernot status in hull prep.  Don't want to remember how many months/hours spent fairing the topsides - how many two pot compounds mixed and spread and mostly sanded off.  I think I have photos to prove there was hardly 3 square feet of the original gelcoat surface left when I finally retired from longboarding.  With some trepidation I approached our 'resident' awlgrip guy to ask if he would DO IT to 338.

When it came time to write a check he told me he had two methods of charging a customer.  One was by the job and elaborated that this was for those who arrive, get the work done mostly by yard people, expecting the work to be done on schedule.  The other was time and materials, for guys who actually work on their boats.  I already had the materials and he charged actual hours painting.:cool:   338 has just had 3, one right after the other, coats of Proline (a high build epoxy primer) sprayed on with not a hint of orange peel.  The boat looks ready right now to launch - without the color!  So S M O O T H  -  Amazing.

The beautiful spray job reveals a bunch of pinholes in many places.  This is why my perfect sanding required ANOTHER sanding coat.  Ve must reveal these  anomalies so they don't show up in the expensive urethane.  They aren't imperfections in applying wet paint like fisheyes but glitches in the hull surface from various trowelings or gelcoat sand-thrus into the fiberglass which often has porosity.  Tiny nasty craters.    

I was told to "hard trowel" them without build-up.  Just fill the buggers, no build-up.  The trick is to mix West System 407 filler  into the high-build paint itself to make a nice moist spread.  Did a lot of fairing in the last weeks this way because it's very easy to sand.   I'll be longboarding on Sunday one last time, very lightly with 150, never breaking thru the job.  Can't bring self to use the rotary sander.  It IS ALL in the prep!!!  Then the awlgrip system goes on with 545, their epoxy sealing primer.  This gets sanded with 320!  Probably use the rubber block for this.  Lightly.  Then the LPU color gets misted on.  Two, three right after one another.

Three coats Proline on 338's topsides came out to nearly One gallon.  You need some Proline thinner for the mix and the gun.  You can use ANY epoxy, any epoxy hi-build under the awlgrip sealing primer.  It doesn't matter because when  set the epoxy  is essentially inert.  Whether a plastic sticks to the substrate, that's the important part.  Have to use good epoxy.

Forget the countless countless hours of prep and countless trowelings of mucho dinero.  As I gets older forgetting gets easier.:confused:   All that hard work  is just getting painted over!!  Damn, forgot to take a picture again.

[c_amos]

You are killing us Ebb.....
 
  We wanna SEE it!

[mbd]

The boat looks ready right now to launch - without the color!  So S M O O T H  -  Amazing.

You tease!  :rolleyes:

I second that Craig! A new paint job and those toe rails?  Mmmmm...

[ebb]

The Proline high-build went on like a  latex exam glove.  Transformed the hull like a hand is transformed in a tight rubber glove.    

When the last longboarding begins I notice immediately that the  primer surface retains its shine where the grit (clothbacked 'anti-static' 150 grit sanding belt stuck on lexan sheet with carpet tape) skips and doesn't bite.  There is  enough difference to see so that the recommended contrasting 'guidecoat' seems unnecessary.  

So there is a hell of lot of work here -  more and more strokes - because the shiney spots don't disappear all that easy.  Removing material has to be done with long strokes.  Every spot dulled.   I'm happy for the extra full coat of primer.  

If I had an arguement for longboarding this late into the prep it's that if I were using an electric sander I know I'd dwell  longer on that difficult spot there and create an unrepairable depression in the process.  But  the sander would be hooked to a vacuum.  The dust from longboarding you eat and you're covered in it.  

As it is, the edges of the grit on the longboard also can make lines in the sanded surface.  Especially when I'm  pushing it and getting tired.  Can't win.  Because the longboard has a lot of surface, colonies of particles can build up  on top of the grit that will also scuff the work.  Flick these off with the corner of a putty knife.  It helps tremendously if the high-build is really set dry.  With Proline, it's better 3 days after you painted.  We're talking about 65 - 75 degree good paint drying days.  Stop sanding if there is any build-up on the paper.

Use the quarter sheet rubber sander with the same grit (but in paper) to smooth the lines away.  I'm scared smoothing the quarters just forward of the transom!  Tightest curves on the Ariel.  That's the area of the topsides that always catches my eye, and I'd hate to end up with cellulite ripples here.  The longboard, while bendy, is afterall a flat surface - and these are the sweetest curves!  The sandboard 'lines' are hardly scuff marks but you hear how EVERY imperfection shows up in the final awlgrip.  I scrub with the rubber sander.  It removes little remaining ponds of shine like magic - oh - oh h h!   545 will make it all OK again.

Some glitches showed up that have to be 'hard troweled' when the port side gets done.  Can't be sanded out.  There will be some more.  "How did I miss those?"  Some areas that got extra strokes are dangerously translucent with  chocolate fairing  lurking under a  micron of primer.

Rainy season is threatening.:eek:

[cbs]

Hello I Own Hull #272 Commander, Just Had Her Painted This Summer  With Awlgrip Lt. Blue And And A Bit More Tint To Brighten Up The Color A Bit, It Looks Great Anfd I Feel The Awlgrip Is The Superior Product Over The Long Haul , I Paid $1500 To Have It Applied, It Was Brushed And It Looks Beautiful, From A Foot Or A Inch Away, But It Was Done By A Professional, I Know I Never Could Have Achieved The Same Look, The Decks Are White And The Nonskid ,bluewhite For Contrast , Witha Red Boot Stripe  And Fresh Varnish She Is A Real Head Turner.
  I Put Up A Few Photos When It Was In The Yard, I Will Add A Few In The Water. Recards, Cbs

[ebb]

Side two is now sanded.  Sanding high-build primer is an interesting phenomena.  Imco you need all the high-build you can get to be able to sand it nearly all off.  It is awsome how evenly our awlgrip guru sprayed the three coats of hibuild on!  Obviously the best is to spray, but I've read (and rolled-on small areas) that rolling on the primer is OK too.  Not quite as smooth.  You need the buildup to sand off.   We're trying to achieve a single surface consistency for the urethane.

If you have a run or a sag, the paint pulls the upper part it is trying to separate from and it gets thinner there.  The drip sets up and is easily sanded but there is a mini hollow above it.  My method of long-boarding to the bitter end means I'm going back and forth over a large area just trying to work a one inch wide sag down flat.  Takes a while.., because if I impetuously bear down on the sander I'm still unable to gouge.  Feathering is what I'm really  doing  working down a flaw.  Doing something anyway.  Really cannot make a depression to erase a shiney spot even if it is only microns.  Keep telling myself that.

I know the hull was fair befor the high-build coat was put on. Certainly doesn't seem like it.  After a while the longboard will not remove some spots without breaking thru the primer somewhere else close by.  Can't do that!   My arms about to fall off anyhow!  
So I use the 1/4 sheet rubber palm sander as a 'cheat'.   And it works wonderous well!  It is like using a pink pearl on a pencilmark - many a little shiney spot is entirely erased with just a few light scrubs.  Really is microns.

Letting the front tarp down for some air, an afternoon shaft of sun smotes the bow.  And the lord sez, 'What is this sh..?  there are pin holes here and 80 grit scratch marks  (Yes, there really was!!) -wod  you call DONE, you old fool?'  
Yea, suh, Ahm way past mixing filler, way way past the 'final longboarding.'  So I takes the bitty sander and erases the revelations, likkety-split.  And the rest of the boat is in tent shadow, obviously can't see the unsunsmote topsides worth a damn anyway, so I lightly scrub the whole topsides everywhere, port and starboard, stem to stern, rail to boot-top - one last time - with continuous circular motions.  Madness.  Used one piece of paper per side - and it still had tooth when I changed it.

So here is a fair dull hull now with trillions of 150 grit scratch marks on it.  Very obvious to see in the secondary light.  
On orders I wash the boat with Joy dish detergent.  Nope, can't use SimpleGreen.  The bubbles help lift the particles away.  Detergent cuts I don't know what grease.  Then I quickly hose the topsides off.  The masking paper doesn't mind  at all.  Ready, boss!

[ebb]

545 (Awlgrip system primer) is then professionally sprayed in 3 consecutive coats.  545 is a sanding primer.  This is the last chance for perfection.

Then spraycan guide coat is applied by the sander.  Sanding is my game.  With practice I suppose it would be fogged on with finesse.  I make an uneven blotchy mess.
This happens to be a Rust-O-Leum quickdry darkgrey primer.  Wait  a couple days for dry and cure, then it begins:  Use a rubber 1/4 sheet holder with 320 Norton paper.  The grey mixes with the 545 creating a dirty, dusty dry 'slurry' that stactically stays on the topside until wiped with a terry cloth.  I have, of course, sprayed on too much guide coat.   Guide coat is to tell the sander where his sander hasn't sanded yet. Turns out there is a lot of hasn't yet and too much guidecoat. And the 545 is not utterly smooth either, it has a bit of 'peel' to it.  Strokes are light.  After the guidecoat breaks up and goes, the progress is slow but visible  every stroke.

Could use a much softer rubber sander.  The ones available are not pliable and conforming enough.  With coarser grit I could do some damage because the rubber doesn't hug the surface.    Also, every time the paper is changed and I attempt to get a fresh one on tight  those damn sharp teeth inside the rubber lips want to hypo fingers.  

THREE HUNDRED
BLACK PINHOLES surface after the topsides are 90% sanded back to white.  Acne scars  appear in patches with dozens in groups.  Where in the hell do they come from?
The too much spraying of grey easily pinpoints every one, small and miniscule.   Every pinhole is scratched and probbed open with a sharp new dental pick.  Many  are surface, but many are surprisingly  deep.  And but for the guidecoat many would have tragically showed up only as the last beautiful coat of Cloud White  was drying.

On orders I get a quart of $32 EverCoat metal surfacing fairing compound from the autopaint supply.   Soft, loose, lightgreen bondo.  Total use maybe 1/2 cup.  This stuff fills imperfections where there are no imperfections.  Waste happens because it sets up in about a minute.  We (Andy and I) hope the color coat adheres well to these tiny spots which are clearly visible with my reading glasses.  Yes, indeed.  Andy sez he'll spray  on two finish coats and check then to see if the paint spans them without soaking in.  If he can see them he'll stop, let the paint dry, and let me use some scotch-brite pad on the hull. Gee! Then he'll spray on the final coat.  That'll stick, he sez, the  wet over the already dry.  The spots will  disappeared.  If the spots aren't showing after two shots then he'll go with three coats all together.

Luckily I don't put the polyester filler on too thick.  It sands tediously easy.  But  if you still leave overall sanding to do (just the lightest bit of grey) to get from 90% to a 100% and  then apply the green filler, all the pinholes will fair away smooth.  The stuff likes to enter the smallest scratches and chinks and does it without making a bubble over the holes.  And the surrounding green stain from the spatula smooch also sands away, all with 320 grit!  Now I've got 300+  green beenholes all over the s m o o t h  topsides.

When it's finally sanded back to white, I take a 1/3 sheet of 320, wrapped around a small piece of orange shag rug and rub the whole topsides down in circles.  It looks burnished now, even shiney.  Do this in an attempt to remove real and imaginary lines made by the edges of the sandpaper on the too-stiff rubber block. Thorough, if nothing else.

Rain has arrived,  
now it's a matter of what window when.  Andy recommends the waterline masking paper be replaced because the buildup of primers and the color film could make removing the masking after the color coat a nightmare.  I remove all the masking, and he's correct, some of it is welded under the waterline edge, which has built up. Not too much, I hope, but there is definitely a ledge there!  I'm a blue tape kinda guy, but I can see even the stronger - and even more expensive - fineline would have to be replaced if I'd used it.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Rant:
3M blue tape is a painter's tape.  Now  the happy  homeowner is the target  of TV ads I've never seen befor.  All-of-a-sudden the blue tape comes in 3 lastings: short, medium, and long, each one more expensive than the other!  For cryinoutloud!  Wouldn't it be simpler (cheaper) to have one good long lasting tape,  rather than all the manufacturing complication and packaging, stacking, shelf talking and advertising?  Have to read the blue tape label now to find out which one you've picked up!   The cheapest is way over priced as it is!:p

[ebb]

Awhile ago I took the sailplan page out of the Manual and had it enlarged.
This is the drawing that shows a very tall coaming (13" at the cabin) that I've always wondered about.  Wondering how acurate the drawing actually is.

I've also downloaded and had corrected at the copyshop a doll's house scale rule that has the inch in 12 sections.  Seems quite acurate.  The enlarged drawing measures the actual rendered waterline at 18'7".  Not bad!  
This line is below the bottom of the boottop.  Take a look.  The drawing has a solid stand alone bootstripe with a curvey top.  Here are the scale measurements from the top of the bow and top of stern.  Give or take a doll's inch.

Bow to top of boottop  - 34"
       to bottom of boot - 38"
       to waterline         - 41"

Stern to top of boot     - 24"
      to bottom of boot  - 26"
      to waterline          - 29"


When I taped off 338's waterline DFO's and I and time had already erased much of the original two sets of incised lines that one assumes came from the factory.  So I chose the top line which had the most marks remaining.  They were few and I had some trouble getting something that looked straight (under the tight constrictions of the tent.)  

Often backasswards, I  decided finally to find out exactly how much of the awlgrip is going to be sitting in the water.  Now that the topsides are cast in primer and ready for the Cloud White.  (Allgrip is not supposed to sit in the water!)
From the bow to the bottom of the primer                        - 32"
From the top of the transom to the bottom of the primer    - 24 3/4"

Gee,  probably don't have a straight line after all!  Must have taped the top of the old factory bootstripe.  Still have a chance to straight the bottom of the bootstripe.  At least the Awlgrip stops way above the designed waterline.  Good thing too, with all the weights and measures 338 is going thru.  And the best boottop paint these days is a different color bottom paint, Right?  Do wonder about how true that drawing is.......

[mbd]

Hey Ebb, would it be possible to borrow the yard's lift for a few hours and float your boat to determine where the real water line  is?

Here's how Tim L. did it with his Daysailor project: Striking the Waterline

With all the variances in construction we've seen with these boats, different bilge configurations, lead pigs, inboard vs. outboard and the like, a "factory waterline" seems a "qualified guess" at best. I know mine doesn't sit on the factory lines, but squats quite a bit. I've marked the actual waterline, but I've got some ballast to rearrange and a host of other projects to do before I get to  the topsides.

Just a thought...  :rolleyes:

[ebb]

Mike, that's a good un.  I like Tim, he tells everything, which I obviously admire, including where he keeps his chewing gum.  I'll study it later.  We may have it there in that set,  but Tim showed us once a way of using string to get the waterline.  I liked it because it was low tech.  I shuda done it like he said instead of relying on blind faith.

I think we would want our boats to float in relation to the designed waterline(s).  I say 'sss' because boats for all sorts of reasons get heavier.  Unless we cut the top off!  We have to keep track as we sink lower.

Knowing the Ariel squats when the outboard is working.  And squats at certain angles of sail that I am not really familiar with...  I will be surprised if it is not only where ballast and stores and junk are placed but where all the more or less permanent loads are that will make the boat well-found, or not.  There's science to  placing weights in a boat to keep it seaworthy and bouyant.  "Heave ho and up she rises..."

It's pretty obvious that some important weights will end up in the ends of a cruising A/C. (see Geoff's 'helipad' in the Gallery)  Or off to one side or the other.  But the original waterline,  maybe favoring a bit of extra lightness in the stern, is the holygrail of handling and voyaging.

For what its worth, I believe the measurements are pretty accurate.  Whaal, I mean, I took em out of the Manual!  At least they could be used to check a current waterline on any catagorical ARIEL.  You know, that ole fore and aft trim.  Ballast weights moved around to see if trimming towards this assumed datum makes the boat more or less efficient.  May be though that each individual Ariel has it's  own sweetspot, its own sweet line in the water.

Think I'll find that Alberg fore and aft line and incise the datum points on the bow and stern.  Or drive in a couple small bronze roundhead screws.  Harbor Freight had a laser level for $6.95, including battery, that was used on a sliding stick jig to raise the WL when the epoxy bottom was put on.  Theory is that the barrier coat would incorporate the bootstripe to take into account settling and overloading.  Brought the topsides back down to the present lines over the barrier.  If I was doing it over again, with another lifetime and lots of money, I would barrier coat the whole hull, keel to sheer!

[dasein668]

Tim showed us once a way of using string to get the waterline.  I liked it because it was low tech.

String Method