Hull Side Panels | Glossing And Finishing The White Stripe

It was time to finish painting the white boot top stripe.

First I masked off the hull sides and sanded the white primer with P220 grit, and applied the first coat of gloss.

It looked like this.

In all I applied six coats of gloss to the white stripe. This was the result.

When dry I pulled the masking tape and wet sanded the stripe with P800 grit. As here.

It looked really good, with a sharp edge and no bleeding.

Then I wet sanded with P1500, P2000 and P2500 grits. I found that wet sanding is a lot easier when using a decent spray bottle to wet the surface.

Lastly I polished the stripe using the Festool P5000, P9000 and P11000 polisher and compounds.

It looked like this.

Note that I masked off the side panels to protect them from mess when wet sanding. However, I didn't mask right up to the stripe, which turned out to be a problem.

Finally I pulled the tape and the masking, as here.

I found that the area of the side panels not covered by the masking was duller than the rest of the hull side. I must have sanded or polished it too much.

There was a dull band on each blue side all along the edge of the white stripe, which I was not able to polish out.

You can't see it in the pic but it is really obvious when standing next to the boat.

Oh dear. I can see rework coming my way ...