Centreboard & Upper Drop Board | Painting

I started to prepare the centreboard for paint and found that one side had a rough surface.

It was not obvious why this might be, but such mysteries are normal in this build.

I stripped that side again, to make sure no paint or residual stripper remained. Like this.

I washed and dried it. Still rough. So I sanded it and applied two coats of clear resin to seal the surface. Here is the board after two coats.

When cured I sanded both sides through to P220, ready for paint.

Three coats of primer were then applied to the centreboard and the upper drop board. Here is the centreboard.

I rolled it on with a foam roller and tipped out with a high quality synthetic brush. It looked good, and dried very smooth with few brush marks.

The first coat of gloss dried with tiny bubbles, so I asked the vendor what the problem was. He said I was injecting air into the paint with the roller, and to make sure I rolled out the air before applying the paint, and to use a special tipping out brush.

I sanded the board to a a P220 finish. As here.

And then I reapplied the paint. It was a lot better.

Various Epifanes tutorials said to apply at least three coats of gloss, so I went for five and wet sanded with a P400 grit between coats.

I started using the rubber sanding block which I had used before with wet and dry, but soon found that I obtained a better finish without the block, like this.

Here are the centreboard and upper drop board after five coats.

Nice and shiny but I can still see residual brush marks. This was a learning exercise, so I will keep trying.

Here they are inside the house where they will stay for a few days, so I can be sure they are fully cured before deploying them.

The next activity is to reinstall the centreboard. Hopefully for the last time!