Upper Hull | Fourth Coat of Gloss

I left the newly applied white gloss to harden for a few days before sanding in preparation for the fourth coat.

This was predictably tedious but I took solace from knowing that I would probably only have to do it one more time, if all went well.

Here I am sanding the cockpit deck and footwell with a P280 grit. The blue tape is preventing the sander hose and cable from damaging the now pristine seatback tops.

The bright work light placed at right angles to the brush strokes clearly shows when the surface is flat and smooth.

When all surfaces were sanded I used a medium grit nylon pad to abrade the fillets and edges.

Everything was washed with water to remove paint dust, and wiped down with thinners immediately before painting.

The cockpit was now ready for more gloss, looking like this.

With previous coats I had some difficulty obtaining good coverage on edges and joins, so for the next coat I  decided to roll over onto the adjoining face.

This is the port view of the footwell, seatback top and transom. Masking tape shows where to apply paint to cover edges.

I thinned the paint with 5% Epifanes Easy Flow, to improve flow and reduce brush marks.

I first painted the cockpit and forward deck well, using the 100mm ANZA brush for tipping out. See previous posts for more details.

It is certainly a fast way of tipping out fresh paint, but I found the brush's bristles clung together in spikes and created very noticeable brush strokes. Tram lines, in fact!

So the following day when I painted the topsides I used a soft 1" brush for tipping out. Here it is, with the roller.

It is a top quality synthetic brush. Very soft and supple.

I washed it in thinners when it stiffened with drying paint and started to drag.

It worked well and I was very pleased with the result.

This is the cockpit after gloss.

Here is a close up of the port quarter, showing how well this coat has covered and flowed on flat and curved surfaces.

As I always do now, I removed all masking tape while the gloss was still wet. I no longer keep it in place until painting is complete, because that leaves a pronounced step to the edge and often causes and hides flaws.

Here are the cockpit and transom skirt, all tape pulled.

I was really pleased with how things turned out. This is the port topsides. Nice and shiny.

I did not lose the wet edge once, and the brush marks are slight when using the 1" brush.

So I think I may have finally cracked the secret of how to get a good finish with a roller and brush.

In theory the fifth coat will be the last, so I will be extra vigilant and keep my fingers crossed!

The Epifanes product guide tells us to wet sand for the final coat with a P400 grit.

That won't be much fun, but I suppose it will have to be done... I will let the gloss get nice and hard before starting.

Onwards and upwards!

Seatback Lockers | Sanding Interiors

The seatback lockers had previously received four coats of primer, and while I was waiting for the third coat of gloss to harden I decided to start work on the locker interiors.

They too would be repainted with gloss, meaning that the primer would need to be sanded.

The finish did not matter where it could not be seen, as long as a protective coat was in place.

However, the finish did matter where the interior was visible. Meaning the forward bulkhead face, the back wall, and the floor.

Here I am trying various techniques.

The only tool which really worked was a small 'rubber' made of rolled up cardboard and tape, and some P180 grit.

This is it.

I made a selection of these rubbers when shaping the epoxy resin fillets, and they worked well.

This small one was ideal for reaching into the lockers and carefully sanding to a smooth finish where it mattered.

It took a surprising amount of time to achieve a good result, but we got there.

This is the port locker, ready for gloss paint.

The next task is sanding the upper hull ready for the fourth coat of gloss.

Progress indeed...

Upper Hull | Third Coat of Gloss

I left the second coat to harden for a few days before sanding it smooth. This time I used a P280 grit, having found the P320 was making hard work of it.

This is the forward deck well.

And this is the cockpit.

The paint was nice and hard and sanded well - no bare patches this time!

I was now using abrasive nylon finishing pads to sand the fillets and rounded edges. This is them.

The red medium grade is ideal for abrading the gloss - not too aggressive and not too fine.

Then the third coat went on. This time I reduced the amount of thinners to 5% to see if it made much difference to the flow out. It didn't seem to.

This is the port quarter after gloss.

This is the starboard cabin top.

That's not too bad!

I'm still having the occasional problem with losing the wet edge, and I have not covered the rounded edges too well in places, but I'm pretty sure that's because I didn't use enough paint and 'starved' the surface.

The finish gets better as the task progresses and the roller sleeve gets fully loaded up with paint. I think with more care and better lighting I could get it right.

I will now leave everything to harden off before more sanding. I'm going to switch to Epifanes Easy Flow to thin the paint to see if that improves flow and finish.

We are getting there!

Upper Hull | Second Coat of Gloss

The time came to gird up my loins and apply the second coat of gloss paint to the topsides.

Before that happened I needed to tape off any apertures in the hull so that dribbling paint didn't ruin the varnished transom.

This is the tiller slot, masked off.

I did the same with the footwell drain holes.

The upper hull had previously been sanded smooth with a P320 grit and any bare patches marked with a piece pf tape and touched up with primer. Like this.

The second coat was then applied, using the 100mm ANZA professional tipping out brush and 10% thinners.

This is what the cockpit looked like.

The white gloss flowed well and covered contours and curves easily. This is the port quarter.

This is a close up shot of a corner of the companionway hood.

And here is the forward deck well.

It's really not too bad at all! I think the finish will improve with practice and each coat. Fingers crossed...

Upper Hull | Applying Gloss!

The big day came when I applied the first coat of white Epifanes 3248 gloss to the upper hull.

I employed the tools and techniques learned from practice on the companionway slide and drop boards.

The paint is thinned with 10% Epifanes Brush Thinner and applied with a Rota foam sleeve roller, and tipped out with an ANZA Elite Pro 100mm tipping out brush.

Here they are.

The brush is washed with thinners before use and kept with its own tray of thinned paint for tipping out.

I wash the brush with thinners when mixing a fresh batch of paint to keep it soft and supple.

This approach worked well in the trials and again when priming the upper hull.

Here is the first coat on the forward deck well and cabin roof, viewed from starboard.

This is what the cockpit looked like.

I did this over two days; one for the cockpit and one for the topsides. It took about nine hours in all.

There are some residual brush marks but they are not excessive, and I did not once lose the wet edge.

And the finish is flat and very shiny.

So overall I am pretty pleased with the outcome. I will leave the paint to harden for a couple of days before I sand it for the second coat.

I can hardly believe that we really are approaching the end of the repaint, and the boat is looking good!

Non-Slip Finish | Test Piece

The cockpit deck and the cabin roof would clearly need some sort of non-slip finish, because they will be very slippery when wet and potentially dangerous.

I had previously tried the original TeaMac non-slip paint on a test piece. The paint contains some sort of aggregate. It looks and feels like rough sand when cured.

This is it.

Not only was it unsightly, it would be unpleasant to sit or stand on.

So I tried rubber granules from Soft Sand, applied to the original gloss paint.

This is what it looked like.

This was an improvement on the grey paint, but I now thought it was rather coarse and didn't look professional enough.

So I asked Paul at BoatPaint UK what he would use, and he said that Awlgrip Griptex is the best non-slip product that they supply, so I purchased a quart can.

This is it.

It is applied by shaker onto wet gloss paint and allowed to dry. Then any loose compound is removed and another light coat of gloss is applied to seal the finish.

So I made a test piece, like this.

Here is the finished article.

The compound is very fine and has produced a flat, matt surface that looks good and is pleasant to the touch, so that is what I will use when fitting out is complete.

How amazing to be thinking this far ahead!

Transom Skirt | Cleaning Up Edges

I had been worried that the white primer on the transom skirt might have a 'stepped' edge due to several coats being applied without being able to pull the masking tape and flatten the edge between coats.

So I removed the tape, like this.

There was a slight step, but the edge itself was not as crisp as expected. It looked like this.

I has used 3M 244 Professional masking tape on this edge, which has worked perfectly until now on straight edges. But clearly it does not like curves, even as slight as the transom skirt.

So I cleaned up the edge and resolved to use 3M 218 Fine Line tape when re-taping.

My plan was to apply fresh tape and then carefully sand away the tape and the primer, thereby avoiding damage to the blue gloss.

Here I am retaping with 218.

I then tried sanding the tape and the primer, but it didn't work. So I had to accept that a small step on the edge was unavoidable.

The edge was now clean and sharp so I simply re-taped and re-covered the transom, like this.

The next paint to grace the upper hull will be its first coat of white gloss. Hooray!