November 7, 2016
Acadia 31
Monday
Preparing ahead for an engine test-run in the shop, I set up some hose and piping to route the engine exhaust out of the shop–as much to avoid the mess as the fumes. I clamped a length of 1-1/2″ hose to the outside of the exhaust outlet, which allowed me to lead the exhaust forward, where I connected the hose to a series of plastic pipes and flexible connectors I had on hand, leading forward towards the shop door.
The boat–decks and hull–had been painted elsewhere several years earlier, and in some areas of the deck (mainly the cockpit), the paint had not adhered properly, and when someone masked off the brightwork, the tape pulled away the paint. This was a pity since the decks looked good otherwise. These photos show a few of the worst areas in the cockpit.
The owner wanted to improve the appearance while stopping short of what the cockpit (and perhaps other areas of the deck) really needed, which was to start over to ensure proper preparation and adhesion of the topcoat. But accepting the existing conditions for what they were, I thought we could patch in some new paint to hide the ragged edge and primer beneath, though the repairs would be necessarily imperfect.
The cockpit was painted with Imron paint, which I thought would be a compatible base beneath the Alexseal I normally used, and which I preferred to use for the repair since I had it on hand and was used to using it. To check for compatibility, I soaked small rags in some of the topcoat solvent and taped these rags to the existing paint in a few areas. After 15 minutes, I removed the solvent-soaked rags and checked the paint beneath. There was no sign of failure, or anything beyond an almost imperceptible softening of the Imron coating, so the existing coating, for all its known shortcomings in this particular cockpit, would be compatible as a base beneath the new paint where they blended together. I’d move forward with this touch-up job in the near future. This also meant I could more easily prime and paint the large patch at the forward end of the cockpit where I’d repaired the old gauge holes.
Total time billed on this job today: 1 hour
0600 Weather Observation:
24°, clear. Forecast for the day: sun, high in the 40s