Upper Hull | Preparation for the Fifth Coat of Gloss

I stated in a previous post that I would be wet sanding the fourth coat of gloss in readiness for the fifth, which I hoped would be the final coat.

I chickened out temporarily, thinking that dry sanding would be so much quicker and easier.

So I got the sander set up ready. Like this.

But something was nagging away in the back of my mind, so I reviewed the Epifanes recommendations. Again.

That didn't help a lot. The product guide tells us to wet sand for the final coat, but the You Tube tutorial by Dan Lee Boatbuilding tells us to dry sand between all coats with no more than a P220 grit.

Who was right? I decided to consult the technical data sheet for the mono-urethane gloss.

That states categorically that we should be wet sanding with a P400 grit between each coat. It even adds ominously, "Preferably by hand".

I have ignored the data sheet before, with terrible consequences. Which is why I am repainting this boat!

There was nothing to be done about the first four build coats. They had all been dry sanded with a P280 grit.

But I would have to make sure the final coat had a flawless substrate. By wet sanding.

I started work on the port cockpit deck. Like this.

It immediately became obvious that this was going to take a long time to complete. Possibly weeks...

So this is an interim post. At time of writing I have wet sanded the port cockpit deck, rear cabin wall. seatback and the transom.

It may be some time before I post again to say that the task is complete.

Time for a beer, I think.

Dorade Boxes | First Coat of Primer

I decided to start on the Dorade box interiors, again while waiting for the gloss to harden.

I thought a foam pad would do the job, applied from inside through the ventilator hole.

How wrong I was! It was not at all effective. Look at this mess.

I will need to find a better way of doing this. Luckily it isn't urgent or on the critical path!

Seatback Lockers | First Coat of Gloss

While waiting for the fourth coat of gloss to harden for sanding, I applied gloss paint to the seatback locker interiors.

This will have to be done in two stages - the areas that are not visible, and those that are on show.

Clearly the invisible areas do not need to have a top quality finish, which is just as well because it would be nigh on impossible. A foam pad will suffice to do this.

The areas on show are the floor, back wall and forward bulkhead.

I decided to paint the latter first, using the techniques learned from applying primer. Use a roller to apply the paint, and the 1" brush for tipping out.

Here they are.

That worked well. This is the view inside the starboard locker.

Not bad at all. Four more coats will do the job.

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!

Seatback Lockers | Priming Interiors (2)

Painting inside the seatback lockers was always going to be a challenge due to their inaccessibility.

Stripping away the old paint was bad enough, but adding fresh was difficult. In a previous post I described my first attempt using an ordinary brush, which failed.

I then found that a foam roller was a good way to prime the back and forward walls and the floor, but it was not possible to cover the remainder.

I tried using a foam brush with the handle shortened, to get into the corners. This is it.

It didn't work very well, and made lots of mess.

I then tried using a sash brush to get into the corners, but that was not effective either.

Finally I hit upon the idea of using a foam pad to simply dab the primer on.

Here it is, with the sash brush.

The foam pad worked well! I applied four coats of primer and moved on to the next task. This is one of the lockers looking aft to the boom gallows pole support bracket.

You can see that the interior has been fully primed.

Only the front and back walls and the floor need to have a show finish, and they will be easy to sand for the gloss.

Upper Hull & Rudder | Touching Up Patches

As described in a previous post, I sanded through to the substrate in places when sanding the primer on the upper hull to get it ready for gloss.

This is what the cockpit looked like when I had marked each bare patch with tape, and applied several coats of primer.

And this is the rudder, similarly marked.

I used P240 finishing paper to sand the the patches. It has a cloth backing so is very soft and flexible when sanding rounded or contoured surfaces.

This is it.

It can be easily torn into suitably sized pieces, like this.

This is the cockpit after all the touch ups had been finished.

And this is the rudder.

Amazingly, the hull is just about ready for gloss paint!

Drop Boards, Companionway Slide & Tabernacle | Gloss Paint Trials

It would soon be time to start applying gloss to the upper hull so I carried out some trials by painting the drop boards, companionway slide and tabernacle.

I had already established that the 'official' recommendation from Epifanes on how to apply gloss is not satisfactory. They tell us to apply paint with a foam roller, with no tipping out. As expected, this produces an 'orange peel' finish - see previous post on this subject.

So I wanted to test tipping out brushes and techniques, and the relative merits of Epifanes thinners and Easy Flow for thinning the gloss.

The slide received six coats of white gloss. I sanded with a P320 grit between coats, as recommended by Epifanes, and pulled all masking tape before the paint cured to preserve a flat edge.

This is the slide after sanding the second coat of gloss, and with tape applied for the next.

And here it is after the sixth coat, with the tape pulled.

The drop boards only received three coats while this was happening because I could only paint one side at a time.

They turned out pretty nice. Here they are.

The findings were as follows.

Epifanes Brush Thinners and Easy Flow both worked well. I added 10% to the paint in both cases, and when applied with the ANZA professional tipping out brush I could not tell the difference. Both maintained the wet edge, flowed out well and left residual brush marks.

I tried using a 1 1/2" (38mm) brush for tipping out, as I did when painting the bottom, but I found it left variable and visible brush marks. So that's a reject.

An online tutorial recommended soaking the tipping out brush in thinners before use. I tried this and also used a separate tray with its own supply of thinned paint to keep it wet.

This is the brush and roller.

This kept the wet edge extremely well, to the extent that the problem has been eliminated. I also found that dipping the brush in more thinners as soon as it started to stiffen kept it supple and soft.

So I will thin the gloss with thinners for the initial coats of paint, and with Easy Flow for the final couple of coats.

I am looking forward to painting the upper hull!