February 26, 2025

Danusia Phase 2-38

Wednesday

The hull paint now had had enough cure time, so to prepare for spraying the boottop, I covered the topsides in plastic sheeting, draped from toerail to boottop.  Once I’d hung that, I moved the staging out of the way and masked the top edge of the boottop, using two layers of tape:  First a layer of blue vinyl fine-line tape, which resisted the solvents in the LPU paint to avoid bleed-under; then, because the shiny, non-absorbent tape tended to let paint pool and then sag onto the surface below if left uncovered, I applied a layer of my normal green tape over it, covering as much as possible.

I finished up the masking by applying a layer of masking paper above the boottop, to cover the plastic and provide an extra layer of protection, and also provide a non-glossy surface to avoid the possibility of sags from the overspray.

With that, the boottop was finally ready to spray, and during the remains of the morning I applied three coats of Stars & Stripes blue to the stripe, leaving it to cure overnight.

Total time billed on this job today: 5 hours