December 28, 2015
Nomad 11
Monday
After final preparations, I spray-applied four coats of gray Alexseal epoxy finish primer on the hull.
Typically, I liked to use high-build primer first on the boats I worked on, and for a time I waffled on whether to use it here or not. Most of the boats that passed through the shop benefited from this additional work, as with various repair work and aged, often checked and damaged, gelcoat, the heavier layer of primer not only helped ameliorate these surface conditions, but also gave me additional opportunity to fine-tune the surfaces before final primer coats. I considered it part of the fairing and surfacing work, rather than part of the painting work.
With this original hull in such good condition overall, with minimal sanding and virtually no repair work or fairing required (other than the transom repair), the finish primer was the coating that was most important to the eventual character of the gloss topcoats. But I still wavered on the high-build, and in fact I eventually decided to use it here simply as a matter of course, even though I’d originally determined not to. Then, late on a Sunday afternoon during final preparations, I discovered to my dismay that I didn’t have enough of the reducer for the high-build primer on hand to do the job, which meant that I’d have to postpone my planned schedule in order to get it–a two-day delay. With my feeling that it wasn’t an important step for this boat anyway, this discovery cemented the decision to simply go with finish primer as the first and only step before topcoats.
Total time billed on this job today: 4 hours
0600 Weather Report:
16°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, windy, 25°