Painting a boat
Greg
acrylic enamel (had painted 1/2 dozen cars or so, prior to this). You
thoroughly clean it (removing any and ALL wax residues and don't use a
soap for this as any residue left behind will cause a peel) you sand it
and contrary to popular opinion it does NOT need to be some mirror
smooth finish (actually too smooth results in poor adhesion of the paint)
400-600 grit max. You fill in all the imperfections with a polyester resin
based filler material. You sand some more. You'll probably also have to
sand some stripes and such off, as well. All a whole LOT of work. The hull
will magically 'grow' (haha) before your eyes as you work on it... Or seem
to anyway.
I 'shot' (with a compressor/gun) the sides and top of hull and brushed the
bottom- at a different time of course. There is a whole lot of 'art' to
painting- which is why good painters get good $. Paint viscosity, pressures,
gun type(s), ambient temperatures, surface prep, # of coats and recoat time,
spray technique, type of paint selected. You'll have a finished product comparable
in durability to an automotive repaint job- probably not REAL glossy as without
getting all the above variables right you'll not get exactly the correct paint
cure rate and proper flow out. A water separator in the compressed air line is
a MUST. Acrylic enamel is pretty toxic, Polyurethane enamels like Imron are
even worse. The paints I've used consist of three components, the paint, the
reducer, and the gloss hardener (a weak catalyst) which gives you a pot life of
I think a few hours. Mix per instructions. CLEAN is critical, you need clean
surroundings to paint in, the boat must be completely clean and lint free
(whee, thats simple, not). Every speck of dust, piece of lint, bug, etc is
magnified about 10x when its in your paint. For taping you also need to buy lint
free paper, newspaper does NOT count...! You need a way to exhaust the paint in the
air from the painting area. I've had excellent results (except for BUGS!) when
painting in a covered (open sides) carport in the late morning, before the
sun is too hot, before the breezes pick up, and after the morning dewfall
has evaporated off... No simple feat and not all days are suitable. Too humid
-forget it, the paint will haze over, looks awful and is in there for good.
Respirators and some type of full body covering like a mechanics 'zoot suit'
-and also a hood, are also musts. The bloody paint will go everywhere !
Both paints need a good month or so to cure properly. Cleanup is with nothing less than
Real automotive grade lacquer thinner, not the HW store variety, but the real thing.
Its so strong its practically a mild paint remover, so watch it. Yet another nasty
chemical to deal with in the painting process...
Greg