NHCAD

Hull - roll & tip paint application

The yellow hull paint was scraped down to gel coat in a few spots. I decided I wanted to paint the hull. I could tell the original hull color was white (or close to it). As long as I was going to undertake a restoration, I thought it would be best to restore the original color as well.

I spent countless hours sanding the old paint off. The plan was to get down to the original gel coat, which would give my primer (Pettit EasyPoxy White Undercoater) something to grip to. Also sanding the old paint off eliminated a lot of the scratches. I used the epoxy fairing material to fill a few spots and then sanded those too.

Here you can see the sanded hull. I washed the hull well, trying to remove the last of the sanding dust. I have started to put some primer on and paused to take a photo. Also kind of nice was the original water line, which showed itself after removing the old yellow paint.

Even though it looks like a lot of gel coat is missing in these photos, the fiberglass is in excellent condition. It wasnt me that was sanding through the gel coat (cracked & white) to expose the patches you see in the photos. Apparently someone before me had done some hull work on this boat. After close inspection I decided the work on the hull was in excellent condition and done by someone that knew what they were doing. Tough as nails! Other than a few superficial scrapes to the gel coat which I filled, I left the hull alone.

I ended up putting two thin coats of primer on. The application method is to use a roller and then lightly brush out the roller stipple with a quality brush. I lightly sanded between each coat (by hand - 220 grit) to break down some of the higher brush strokes. I added a little paint thinner to help the paint to run some and hide the brush strokes.

The white paint was much more opaqe than the primer, so a second coat was not necessary. In the photo above you can see some reflections. It dried to an impressively hard surface. Probably not as good as a spray on application, but for doing it myself it worked out great.