brown stripe

[skip1930]

" Turns out sailing requires a lot of skills that have nothing to do with the wind. " Very funny post. Thanx.
You would think General Motors [ Ben Bernanke ] would pay the taxpayer back first before paying on the union demands.
I liked your lung commit. Painting is an art. In the auto body repair business there aren't a lot of old painters...if every State has an EPA then why does the federals also have an EPA? One of the other but not both.

skip.

[Bob23]

Wes:
   Let me be perfectly clear: I was not intending to bribe you to paint my boat but rather banking on your good nature and generosity to do it for free out of the kindness of your heart!
   Seriously, when I got done varnishing all my teak for the first time, I had the same reaction as yours: So glad it's done, never want to do it again, but dang proud of the finished product. Problem with teak is you always end up doing it again sometime.
   The boat is true to her name..Bella!
Ciao! Roberto23
(ps: A brown stripe is what I used to get while riding my road bike in the rain without fenders! Right up my white t-shirt back!)

[Glenn Basore]

Beautiful paint job !

I have always liked dark hulls especially the blue.

Glenn B.

[brackish]

Nice job Wes!  I'm a sucker for a dark color hull, particularly flag blue.  I've sprayed Imron cat/poly a couple of times.  Was the perfection fairly easy to use?

[wes]

Nothing about 2-part polyurethane paint is easy, because of the finicky thinning process and very fast drying time. I started with "roll and tip", and despite following all the best practices and spending many hours tweaking the thinner mix, I was never able to get the brush marks to flow out. It's possible this had to do with the dark color - I've heard the lighter colors are easier to manage. At any rate, I ended up sanding it off and towed her to the shop of a friend who has a commercial spraying setup (he's a cabinet maker). Spraying turned out to be a WAY better solution. The Perfection sprayed well, dried fast so we could do two or three coats in an afternoon, and had a nice glossy finish.

Ironic - I chose Perfection over Awlgrip specifically because I didn't have a pro spraying setup and wanted to do roll and tip. Ended up spraying anyway. I'm sure the final result would probably be equally good with either. Despite the hassles, I don't think 2-part poly has any competition when it comes to a rock hard, durable, glossy finish that lasts a long time.

- Wes

[brackish]

Wes, I've not had any success with roll and tip the few times I've tried it and I've never tried it with a cat/poly.  Thing is, I sprayed the Imron myself and had very little experience at the time and amateur grade air atomized equipment.  It came out great.  No thinning required, the two parts mixed to proper spraying viscosity.  It was far easier than than I thought it would be.

Agree on the durability, particularly UV resistance.  Better than gelcoat.

[wes]

Maybe Imron is designed to be sprayed, thus no thinning necessary? Perfection definitely required substantial thinning, about 30% to 40%. It is designed primarily for roll & tip, so is probably thicker. I follow Interlux's spraying specs to the letter. It's possible to blend their fast and slow drying thinners to get the drying time you want.

- Wes

[millsy]

I used to paint boats professionally back in the late 80's and early 90's, and had very good success using roll-tip with the polyurethanes including Awlgrip and Sterling.  I have painted a few since then also but only my own boats.  My Pearson 35 I painted (spray application) Flag Blue Awlgrip polyurethane.  Unfortunately, in Florida, a dark color in our hot sun can essentially cause the laminate to postcure and show print-through of the roving.  This eventually happened on the Pearson but it still looked great.
 
Because I was painting in my backyard, on the Compac I spay painted hull and decks with the more forgiving Awlgrip Awlcraft.  You can't use roll/tip on the Awlcraft because, like Imron, it is an acrylic urethane.  With the Imron in particular you can add all kinds of additives to allow you to work around problems.  Imron sometimes gets a bad rap for not lasting as long in service, but I think that this is usually the result of the applicator using too many additives and not doing a thorough prep in the first place.

Brightsides and other single-part paints can last quite a long while but again surface prep is the key. Can't tell you how many times I have seen painters start the prep with sandpaper, instead of scouring the surface with a Comet type cleanser first and removing all contaminants.  This is probably too much information but I thought that I would chime in.

Chris
C-23 Dolce

[wes]

I absolutely agree about the importance of prep. I cleaned my entire hull with Interlux's Fiberglass Surface Prep (way more expensive than Comet, but I didn't want to give them any excuses if the job didn't turn out well) to remove any traces of wax or grease, then ground out and patched the scratches and gouges with Interlux Water-Tite epoxy filler, then sanded the entire hull with 220 grit on a random orbit sander. Then primed above the waterline with Interlux Epoxy Prime-Kote and below the waterline with Interprotect 2000. So far so good. It was the roll and tip finish coats that went sour. Having read the recent article in Good Old Boat about successful roller application of Awlgrip, I am inclined to think that Perfection is just not a good product for that type of application despite all the marketing claims to the contrary.

[millsy]

Good point Wes about using the cleaner before sanding.  But even before breaking out the chemicals, it is best to scrub the surface with Comet and a scotch-brite pad until your fingers bleed, ensuring that water sheets cleanly down the hull.  Then do it again