Sanding Primer & Hiatus.

 I left the primer to harden for a few days and then started to sand it flat, using a P180 grit to remove brush marks followed by a P220 grit to polish it smooth.

This went well and I sanded most of the port side before my trusty Festool Rotex 90 abruptly stopped working.

It did this once before a few years ago and it turned out that the brushes had worn out. I suspect that this has happened again.

No choice but to put it in for repair. Luckily there is a Festool dealership in Eynsham, so off it went the following day.

I wasn't too worried because I had the DeWalt palm sander which worked well when I sanded inside the cabin, so I set it up with the vacuum cleaner and carried out a test on the starboard cockpit deck.

Like this.

Unfortunately it was not successful, and sanded through the primer to bare substrate, so that won't work.

The problem is that it is too aggressive. I use a soft interface pad with the Festool, which eliminates this problem.

So it looks like I will have to wait for my go-to sander to come back!

Rudder, Companionway Slide, Tabernacle & Lower Drop Board | More Primer

While painting the upper hull with primer I worked on the remaining components in parallel.

This is the rudder taped for white primer.

This is the first coat of primer on the rudder and lower drop board.

And this is the first coat on the companionway slide.

The tabernacle also got primed. Here it is with the slide.

At this stage only the slide received seven coats. This is it.

I pulled the masking tape on the rudder after five coats.

I will now apply five coats of grey primer and flatten the join before applying the final two coats of both colours.

We're getting there!

Upper Hull | More Primer

The happy and momentous day arrived when I completed the first coat of white primer to the upper hull.

Here it is.

Pretty patchy, as expected.

The undersides had required seven coats thinned with 10% Epifanes thinners to obtain a good finish, so that's what I planned to do with the topsides.

I masked off the tiller slot and the footwell drain holes to prevent paint dribbling onto the varnished transom. Like this.

Then I repositioned the protective sheeting on the transom skirt and masked it off for primer, like this.

It then received its first coat of primer, which was of course very patchy. Like this.

I applied five coats of primer to the upper hull, then pulled the masking from the rails to assess the paint joins.

This is the port rub rail. It looks good.

And this is the port toe rail. It looks good too.

I tidied the joins with some light sanding and applied two more coats of primer, making seven in total.

Here is the upper hull after its final coat.

More primer is still required in the footwell, where the centreboard pendant prevented painting until the cockpit deck was primed.

Some other components also needed more primer.

I made a spreadsheet so I could keep track of how may coats had been applied to what surface. This is it.

It would otherwise be near impossible to remember what was what, for me at least!

I was pretty pleased with progress and awarded myself a G&T to celebrate.

Cheers!

Topsides | Applying Primer!

At last the day came to apply primer to the upper half of the boat. It had been so long since I did this that I had forgotten how to do it, so I just opened a tin of paint and rolled it on to the cockpit and forward decks. Just to see what happened.

As expected the first coat was very patchy. This is the cockpit deck, seatbacks and rear cabin wall.

And this is the forward deck.

I immediately remembered that the primer needs to be thinned for it to flow and cover effectively, so I stopped painting when the paint ran out and looked up how to thin it on my blog.

It turns out that 10 per cent thinners are required, so that is what we will do tomorrow when painting will recommence.

Upper Drop Board | Wet Sanding

 Way back last year when I started repainting the boat with Epifanes paint I made a test piece by finishing the upper drop board and leaving it outside in all weathers to see how it coped.

It was fine, except for some marking where chalk and salts from the rain had left marks on the surface of the paint.

This was because I had not left the paint to cure for long enough before exposing it to the elements.

In a spare moment I started to wet sand the drop board with a P400 grit, just to see what would happen.

This is it in progress.

The marks disappeared, leaving a lovely flat and smooth surface for the final coat.

So all is well with the new paint.

Rudder | Marking Up for Paint

 I needed to mark up the rudder for paint before I started painting the hull, so I dry fitted it and used the laser level to mark up the blue boot top stripe.

This is the port side with the laser beam in action. I made pencil marks on the rudder.

And here I am joining the pencil marks to get the boot top stripe marked up.

That was fun!

Preparing for Paint (2) | Bare Patches & Masking Tape

 While preparing the topsides for paint I noticed a number of very small patches where I had somehow sanded through to the marine ply. There were twelve in all but all small so I marked them with a bit of tape and applied a coat of clear resin. Here are two of them.

When cured I sanded them flat through to a P220 grit.

Then I masked off all the rails using 3M 244 professional masking tape. This is it.

And here are the rub rails, toe rails and companionway grab rail all taped off.

The transom was a little trickier. I only need to paint the transom skirt but I didn't want to completely remove the protective sheeting from the whole transom.

So I just rearranged the tape on each quarter to allow the side panels to be painted separately, leaving me to paint the transom skirt later.

This is the port quarter.

We are very close to applying primer!