I just finished painting the deck of Full and By, C-295 and learned a bunch even though it is my third project like this in the last 15 years. New materials, new techniques, poor memory, old age, etc... I love to use Interlux high end products..they produce excellent results. I though I'd share the following and post some pics, maybe help out some other goo-old-boat-sicko out there. basic steps:
1. Pick the right boat to start with...one that has never been painted. Life is definitely too short to start by removing paint from a PO's botched deck job.
2. Repair soft deck areas, fill holes that won't be used..old instrument holes, deck plates, etc. Don't forget the dings on the outside of the toerail.
3. install new deck hardware temporarily that you intend to reinstall permanently. Remove. Refill holes with filled epoxy, then drill 1/8 in locating holes in the filled holes so you can tell them from the old ones you will conceal with paint
3.1 Remove the rub rail!
4. Dremel out the large gelcoat spider cracks, only the big ones
5. Sand the existing non-skid areas with 60 grit to knock off the tops of the teeth, and sand areas to receive high-gloss trim paint flat, and down to 220 grit. vacuum, wipe and tack before painting each coat
6. Layout trim borders with fine line pencil where these differ from the original non-skid pattern. Be sure areas are dirt free.
7. Mask the trim areas with the highest quality masking tape. I formerly used only 3M plastic fine line tape for this,, but the new green masking tape from Home Depot works well and costs about half. BUT, you do need to use 3M Fine line plastic tape in 1/4 in width for each corner radius, it you've added them. Vacuum, wipe and tack
8. Two coats of Interlux Epoxy Prime Coat, sanding to at least 180 between coats to level the minor whoopees . Might take three, depending. Use the small diameter white foam rollers from Home Depot instead of the west system rollers. Yes, they will get attacked by the solvents...but you cannot compare the finish! roll paint on, flatten with one pass of a foam brush. for one coat, you'll go through three rollers and two brushes.
9. Two or three coats of Perfection two part linear polyurethane, sanding between coats to 320
10 Remove masking tape, and apply masking tape for the opposite side of the line...mask of the non-skid.
10.1 Cut carpet scraps for strategic high-traffic areas..the ones you'll damage when you are re assembling the boat...set these aside
11. hit the deck again with 80 grit just where you dropped trim paint, epoxy, etc....
12. vacuum and wipe down with damp cloth. DO NOT use any solvents to wipe anything down after you've masked!
13. Roll on un thinned KiwiGrip non-skid with the same foam roller you used before...this is not a texture coat, but a color coat! if you have a dark deck, do this twice. One coat like this takes about half a liter (Kiwi grip is sold in liters). Buy the 4 liter can of KiwiGrip and you'll have some (little less than a quarter of the can) left over for repairs later.
14. Practice for the final coat...the KiwiGrip instructions say that you'll get better as you go along and I did. By the time I finished painting the boat, I knew how to do it properly..and that's a little late...
15. Paint the final texture coat of KiwiGrip per the instructions...EXACTLY.
16. remove tape and reassemble your new boat
some interesting facts:
Trim: One coat of either epoxy primer or Perfection will consume about half a quart of material. layout and masking takes about 6-8 hours. sanding between coats takes about 3 hours. initial sanding took....Jeezus....days. Applying one coat took about 3.5 hours
Non-skid: I would use KiwiGrip again for sure, especially now that I know how to get it down pretty well. In the past, I used Perfection with non-skid polyumeric beads for non skid and it worked ok, but prep time is huge and the surface is inferior non-skidwise, inho. A commander takes a little less than 4 liters.
questions? fire away
