Tuesday
The new paint had had a week to cure–new LPU requires about three weeks for a full cure, but one week is a workable cure time–so the owner arrived to bring his boat home, where he could finish the woodworking and hardware work still required.
0600 Weather Observation:
48°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, high near 80.
Thursday
Now that the paint was cured, and I was done with spraying, I could remove all the masking tape, paper, and plastic from the boat early in the day.
Once I was back to the bare boat, I masked off the smooth deck areas to prepare the field for nonskid, as well as around the top of the hull using a special low-tack tape.
After final preparations, I applied two coats of light beige nonskid paint over the course of the day–heat and drying conditions allowed for the second coat late in the day. This completed the main painting process and the bulk of the project. Still to come: project wrap-up.
First coat:
Second coat and unmasked:
Total time billed on this job today: 2 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
55°. partly cloudy. Forecast for the day: clouds and sun, possible shower.
Wednesday
The final list of preparations before the hull was ready to spray was short: mask off the boottop, and mask off the decks. I took care of both chores first thing in the morning.
After solvent-washing the hull and tacking off, I prepared a quantity of shop-mixed pale mint green, aka “aqua mist”. Because of the minimal and budget nature of this particular job, and with ample raw materials on hand, I chose to make up the color in the shop from materials on hand, rather than purchasing a new container of the actual color. Earlier, I’d mixed up several samples, looking to match the stock aqua mist color as closely as possible. I determined that a 20:1 ratio of off-white and dark green Alexseal gloss topcoat gave me the color I was going for.
With the paint mixed at this ratio, I spray-applied three coats of the glossy paint on the hull, leaving it to cure for the remainder of the day. The end result was pleasingly subtle.
Total time billed on this job today: 3.75 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
75°, foggy. Forecast for the day: Chance of showers then clearing, high near 80.
Thursday
Now that the new gloss topcoat was done on the deck and boottop, I removed the masking tape and paper. It was too soon to overmask the fresh paint to prepare for the next painting steps (i.e. either the hull paint or nonskid paint), so I spent the remains of the day on other business.
Total time billed on this job today: .5 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
68°, fog. Forecast for the day: Becoming sunny, humid, 90s
Wednesday
After final preparations, I applied three coats of Alexseal off-white gloss topcoat to the deck areas and boottop.
Total time billed on this job today: 2.25 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
50°, mostly clear. Forecast for the day: sun, possible showers, high 70s.
Tuesday
I spent the morning sanding the deck and hull with 320 grit paper, by machine and hand as needed. I sanded away the light gray coat, which worked fairly well, but I thought the experiment was only a marginal success, as I felt that I needed to sand more than necessary inn some areas, since the wet-on-wet coat tended to incorporate itself into the layers beneath rather than staying on top. Not a real surprise, and still, it made for an easy gauge of sanding progress.
After sanding, I cleaned up the boat and shop with blow gun, vacuum, and broom, and solvent-washed the surfaces to accept tape.
The boottop would be the same color as the smooth areas of the deck, and since I could reach all these areas at the same time, I went ahead and struck and masked a new boottop 1-1/2″ above the already-masked waterline.
On deck, I masked off borders around the cockpit coamings, cockpit opening, and mast partners, the only areas to receive glossy paint on deck. Then, I completed the masking for topcoats by covering the remainder of the deck and hull in masking paper to protect against overspray.
Total time billed on this job today: 8 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
45°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny, 80s.
Sunday
Fresh back from vacation, I got right to work on the finish primer coats. After final preparations and paint mixing, I spray-applied three coats of epoxy-based white primer on both hull and deck. The process was pretty fast since I could do the hull and deck at the same time without any further setup or equipment changes.
Afterwards, I mixed some gray primer and, mixing it in with the remnants of white, created a light gray color that I used as a very light 4th coat—really a guide coat to make sanding easier. While the spotty gray primer didn’t look as nice as the smooth white coats beneath, it’d make it a lot easier to gauge my sanding progress later: once I sanded off the gray, the surface should be smooth and ready for topcoats.
Total time billed on this job today: 4 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
55°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny, 80s
Thursday
The fine fairing material required a light sanding to remove the excess, which I took care of now. This also effected a final smoothing of all surfaces. Pleased with the overall condition of the substate now–pretty decent considering what poor condition the boat appeared at the beginning–I deemed the surface prep complete, and thoroughly cleaned the boat and shop–blowdown, vacuum, solvent wash, sweep, floor wash, and a final solvent wash with proprietary solvent.
Later, I prepared the product and spray equipment for the finish primer, which would be the next step.
Meanwhile I experimented with a custom mix for the hull color, something different that I hoped would suit the boat. I made up three separate batches, varying the ratio as needed to come up with a somewhat different color for this project and matching a sample I strove to reproduce. Alas, constant reader, I must leave you in the dark about the final color–all the better to pique your interest as we near that stage of the project.
Total time billed on this job today: 3.5 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
62°, clouds and sun. Forecast for the day: clouds and sun, showers and thundershowers in the afternoon, high in the upper 80s.
Wednesday
I spent the morning sanding the new primer with 220 grit paper on a vibrating finishing sander and by hand as needed. The overall effect of the primer was good, and it would provide a consistent surface for the finish primer later. With sanding complete, I vacuumed and solvent washed the surfaces to prepare for the next step.
Along with the earlier rounds of fairing filler that I’d applied to help ameliorate the heavy crazing on the hull and deck surfaces, the high build primer was a further means of additional filling of small cracks, but inevitably the primer also highlighted various areas that required some additional work–this being one of the intended purposes of this primer step. Mixing up a batch of fine epoxy fairing compound, I went around the boat and filled any visible crazing and cracking, along with pinholes and porosity in the laminate or previous rounds of fairing material. This photo shows the type of minor crazing and pinholes I addressed at this stage, highlighted here by the fine filler:
With gelcoat crazing so widespread over the original boat, it was no surprise to cover a good bit of the boat with the fine filler, particularly portions of the hull where the crazing had been the worst, but this additional step would help provide the desired substrate for finish primer and topcoat later.
Total time billed on this job today: 4.5 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
60°, sunny. Forecast for the day: sunny, high 80s/low 90s
Tuesday
After final preparations, I spray-applied three coats of epoxy high-build primer to the hull and deck areas. The small size of the boat allowed me to do both hull and deck concurrently, so the elapsed chore went a bit faster as a result. I left the primer to cure the rest of the day and overnight.
Total time billed on this job today: 3.5 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
65°, foggy. Forecast for the day: fog lifting, sunny, high around 90