Paint

I have decided to paint the exterior as the hull is upside down and ready at this point.  Centerboard will get painted as well.

The paint du jour is System III waterbased linear polyurethane.  The plan is to give the hull 2-3 coats of primer then lightly sand til smooth and then attempt a roll and brush tip approach with the top coat.  This paint will clean up with soap and water and has very low VOC for use in close areas without ventilation.  This is important in that I cannot control the environment in my small garage and need something safe.  The downside is that it does not go on well in hot weather, therefore the timing of doing this in October in New England should be good.  Although falling leaves and neighbors with leaf blowers can ruin a finish in the blink of an eye.

The whole boat has been sanded to 180 grit and dusted and wiped clean of dust with rags and solvent.  I will do it one more time prior to the application of the paint.  Photos coming.

10-2-14
Two coats of primer were applied today.  Amazing how it looks better already.  The LPU goes on very thin and needs tipping with a polyester brush.  One needs to work pretty quickly.  It takes a couple of hours for one coat to dry sufficiently to do another coat on top.  I did make the mistake of going back over the transom as I thought it was too thin, leaving an orange peel effect.  Fixable with more sanding...

Looks like it will be three coats of primer prior to top coat.  Sanding with 180 grit prior to the final coat.

A quick word on the waterbased LPU.  It rolls on easily, washes off with water, and has little VOCs.  This makes it a good paint for the homebuilder working in less than ideal conditions (some moth has taken up permanent residence in the centerboard).

10-3-14
Forgot to put the centerboard in the garage last night before going to work.  It rained...
Just read this on the materials sheet.
"The film will not be water-resistant until it is cured. Rain or moisture
from dew or condensation can damage the film. The primer cures as a
relatively rigid film, so is not recommended for use on flexible substrates
like fabric or thermoplastic"   Oh dear.  looks like more sanding.  Again.

Postmortum - It actually had just a little dribble that was easily sanded out.  This aspect of the project is going well.  Helps to read the directions.

Did a little further shaping of the rudder today and prepped the headstock for paint since that is what we are doing right now.  Does not look as if a third coat of primer will be necessary, but I will take the boat out in light tomorrow to sand and double check.

10-4-14
hand sanded with 150 grit this morning for two hours then applied a coat of top coat.  the LPU paint is best applied with a sprayer, but I have none, so went with roller and brush.  The result is not as smooth as I had hoped.  will sand again between coats in an attempt to control the finish product.  It can be thinned with a little water and will try that next time as I think the lack of humidity today caused the paint to set up way too fast.

October 6, 2014
put on another two coats this morning and afternoon dodging the rain.  The online builders forum suggested painting on a rainy day with the garage door open.  Yup,  much better results.  Then an old buddy of mine suggested that I go to 4 coats and wet sand / buff for a final mirror finish.  Yup.  Thats the plan.  Well see if I have enough paint on.

Fourth coat applied. 

The light spot is the reflection from behind!  This is working.

Hope to get a photo outdoors tomorrow.

Here is a photo after 4 coats taken in good light.

The resulting finish looks ok from 5 feet away, but there are a lot of brush marks that are moderately deep.  I have attempted to buff these out using the long board, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, 1800 grits successively. Then, following up with rubbing compound and polish.  The result is mixed as I have a lot of halos showing.

Aft starboard panel has been wet sanded from 400 through 1500 then buffed with rubbing compound and polish.  It is a very slick surface that is highly reflective.  Many surface swirls however.  

Hmm.  looks better now after sanding down the brush marks and polishing polishing polishing.  I did wear through one spot that will need touch up, and some scratches got into the coat from some dirt that got under then sandpaper.  Ouch.  Not visible when the boat is on the trailer, but I know its there! Will touch up today.

Found out that I was in possession of a buffer/polisher in that the 7" angled grinder was actually a 6" sander/polisher according to the label on it!  Will get a better pad and backing plate and try this in the spring.  Boat is now upright and ready to finish as much of the interior prior to the weather closing in.

Does not look too bad from this far away.  Needs polishing and buffing.

Summary:
If using waterbased LPU applied with Roller/brush
1.  4 coats primer
2. Wet sand with 400 to smooth finish
3.  apply 3 coats top coat
4.  Buff til smooth and scratch free.

that sums it up and will save someone a ton of time.

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Trailer and a Paint Job

I found a 16 tilting boat trailer on Craigslist for a reasonable price, so I bought it. Ill need to re-carpet the bunks, but now I have something to put the boat on when its time to flip the hull.

Trailer: Check.

Last night, I painted 2 coats of System Three WR-LPU Whidbey White on the hull. I used the basic "Roll and Tip" method, which seemed quite easy after watching a couple of online videos. 

Since the paint was going on top of System Threes Silvertip epoxy, the tech support folks at System Three said there was no need for a primer coat first. Id have to say that the technical support people at both Flexdel (makers of the Aquagard marine paints) and at System Three have been both responsive and helpful.

2 coats of Whidbey White

The WR-LPU is a two-part paint. I mixed a 16 oz batch for starters, and that proved just enough to paint two coats on both sides of the hull, (excluding the transom). I havent decided yet whether to add a third coat.

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This Old Kayak Old Paint Part 1

People occasionally write me to ask whether they can use this or that material or process in the building of their boat.  I sometimes have answers for them and more often do not.  When I dont, I like to tell them to try whatever it is they are asking about and they will find out if it works or not and then they will be the experts on that particular topic.
In any case, I try a lot of stuff, more or less indifferent that a lot of it wont work.  I also am casual about boat storage so most of my boats are subject to accelerated aging. I also like to use off the shelf, not yacht approved materials to see whether there is a cheap way out of any particular conundrum.
So lets move on to todays topic, Old Paint. No not the horse.  Old paint that has turned dry and brittle and stressed and developed cracks.  To be more specific, old varnish.  Because the substrate of the varnish on a skin on frame boat is a flexible fabric, impact on the skin causes fractures in an interesting way. So proceed and feast your eyes on a variety of stress cracks in old varnish on a nylon skin.  Enjoy.

A small running critter.  The green flecks are fake gold leaf I put in the varnish.  The gold is actually brass and has oxidized to a green.

stretch marks.

Southwestern US petroglyph, what of, Im not sure.

and a braid.

More stretch marks.

This one kind of looks like an ancient shrimp fossil.

This one, Im not sure, kind of like a cartoon bird in flight.

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Old Kayak Old Paint Part 2

For the premise of this post, go back one post.  This post is about yet another instance of a paint job gone wrong.  Not functionally wrong, just esthetically wrong, though not entirely, not in my estimation anyway.

 I took these pictures just before repainting the hull of my favorite Unangan kayak, (baidarka).  The reason I was repainting was not that the finish looked spotty. I actually liked the look, sort of organic, but rather that there was wear in the base coat that was letting water leak in.

The original sealer on this boat was varnish which gives the boat a vaguely rawhide colored look.  But I wanted something darker like rawhide thats sat in a museum for 200 years.  I was able to achieve that look, or so I thought until I questioned other people what it looked like and they said it looked like tree bark.  What I had done was mix oil color with varnish and I painted that over the original varnish coat. 
If I had read the label on the varnish I would have found out that once the varnish is fully cured, you need to sand it before you try to paint over it.  As you might guess, I just painted without sanding and so after about a year or so the new paint turned brittle and on exposure to sun started flaking off a little at a time.  As I said, I liked the look - kind of like lichen on a rock or a seal with the mange, but I finally had to throw in the towel on this paint job and scraped and sanded and then covered it over with a coat of gray latex paint.

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