Spraying or "roll n tip" ?
Spraying or "roll n tip" ?
It turned out to be more on the order of roll, drag, and smear. Carol rolled and I handled the rest on my own... Tomorrow is a new day. We'll fix her make up and pick up where we left off today. It looks like we have a couple days before the rain returns.
My home has a keel.
Tony,
Very nice to see that you are making such great progress. I really admire your courage and craftsmanship. Look luck with the final push!
I painted a small skiff in my backyard last July. It was my first time painting a boat. It was well over 100 degrees everyday which presented a few obstacles to say the least. Here are few hard learned lessons. FYI I used Prefection which in the end gave very good results.
I am sure most of this has been said before….
1) Paint in the early AM. I did all my prep the day before and then in the AM would just solvent wash and tack off before putting down a coat. I would let this dry thru the heat of the day and then sand it out and clean it up in the evening.
2) Work in small sections and try, at all costs, to maintain a wet edge. This was the hardest thing to figure out bc the paint was drying so fast. You need to tip the edge of the previous section as you tip the one you just did to blend them so if you wait too long it will be too dry and will smear.
3) Over thin the paint. I used 1.5 times the recommended amount.
4) You can use the cheap foam rollers that are available at HD. No need to buy expensive ones and in fact I found the cheapos worked better! Also I used a foam brush to tip which was far superior to a conventional brush. The latter left huge ridges in the paint bc it dried before it could flow out. The foam ones minimized this big time!
5) I sanded between coats to try and remove ridges and runs. The first two coats I pretty much sanded off completely bc I was still learning. I think I put on 5 coats before I felt it looked good. Mine you it was a dark colour which shows every flaw!
6) If you get behind with tipping and you find the paint is drying too fast don’t try and rework it just keep going. You can solve the problems with the next coat or rather with the next sanding!
7) Avoid rain...rain is bad....very bad....did I mention that rain is bad......good luck!
We finally got the primer under control. It took a day of travelling around the area to get a shade cloth which we rigged up over the boat. The next day it was amazingly cooler on deck and in the cabin. The primer was high-build and naturally thicker than some of the other stuff we have used in the past. It hid some "whoobees" which was fine by me, but again, my finish standards are taking a back seat to the desires to get if safe, sealed, and sailing.
Here's what the new shop looks like.
Not what I was used to back in MN! Oh well, I never have to sweep the shop floor.
My home has a keel.
One thing on the list that has been dragging out far too long is the main companion way. I never really had a solid plan for how it was going to be finished off. I just knew I wasn't a big fan of the hinged doors she had when we bought her. I wanted simple and easy but there wasn't a straight path there because of a number of things going on with the hatch; like the drain gutters coming aft, the positioning of the slide tracks, the S-shaped curve in the aft end of the cabin top.
To get down here all we did was cut a couple of dados in the edge of 2x4s and screw a chunk to either side of the companion way. I called it the Jethro Bodeen look..
Finally after visiting as many boats as I could and trying to adhere to the KISS principle, I cobbled together some pieces of plywood, made some compromises, and glued them in place.
After we got things primed and one coat of paint on the cabin top, we made a couple of simple drop board guides out of some of the teak we brought with us. Once the painting is done and we attach them with sealant, we'll add plugs for the screw holes and varnish them.
We scored some 1/2" acrylic from our neighbor's garbage pile that was crazed something awful on one side but looked pretty good on the other. It will serve the purpose well for the time being.
We have some new 1/2" smoked acrylic for the slider, but that will have to wait until after the last coat of paint. For now, the plastic wrapped plywood will do...
My home has a keel.
Thanks for the update Tony. Love the new signature.
Mike
Totoro (Sea Sprite 23 #626)
Looking around corners, you got some beautiful work there, Tony!
That gray 'primer' stealth topsides full shot has a real modern look to it. Like it!
(ebb's right behind ya, finally getting littlegull's deck & cockpit painted...
Never, never never too late!!!) Happy for you.
Nice to see things coming together.
Now....that was a few weeks back...
Updates AND pictures please
Hey, Frank
No pictures tonight, I'm sorry to report. We had to take a couple of days away from the boat yard (aka dirt yard) for our sanity. It's so easy to forget that we are doing this for the experience and fun when we are continually focused on getting things done. recently we got the bronze straps on our rudder, sea cocks and through hulls installed and sealed, rub rails shaped and primed, water tank plumbed (and filled with DRINKABLE water), new burners installed in the Taylors, dinghy outboard running, new prop on, companion way slider installed, cleaned the generator and got it running again (Carol's the mechanic in this family), got the backstay polished to a mirror-like shine, boot stripe painted, and started on the mast and boom. We make a pact that at least once a week we would go to the beach so we wouldn't loose track of what we are here for, and now we try to go there every afternoon to swim the troubles away and shower in less-stinky water. Add a couple of odd jobs on other boats and lending a hand where we can and the weeks just seem to fly by. We'll be posting pictures of "stuff" soon and hopefully we'll have videos coming in the (relatively) near future.
thanks for asking and..
Peace, Love, and Coconuts!
My home has a keel.
Tony Tony Tony...Originally Posted by Tony G
Inquiring minds want to know....and see pictures!!!
Feed my fantasies. I cannot live vicariously thru you without picture nor text.
Although we are a long way from where we were hoping to be by this time, at least we are on the water. That alone is a big improvement over the back corner of the boatyard where the bugs and heat were inescapable. We stepped the mast, but, we will have to do a little more work on "sorting out" the standing rigging due to adding the roller furler.
My home has a keel.
We had a bunch of ash strips for the overhead and ceiling in the v-berth when we left MN but I knew we didn't have enough to finish so I thought we'd just pick some up in FL. Turns out you can't find ash that easily BUT they had douglas fir in abundance! (virtually impossible to find back home) So we built a table saw and ripped down some 8 foot 2 X 6s and used that instead. The Douglas fir is what I would have chosen in the first place so sweeto-burrito! To top it off, all of the ash strips we brought were highly sought after by another boater who is using them to build harps. win-win.
My home has a keel.
All kinds of nice touches evident.
Be great when she's all together
Can't wait to see what you're going to do with a dodger!
Or with a bone in'erteeth
S-W-E-E-T!!! And a hearty congrats to you guys Tony. Love the coamings and the open v-berth arrangement, etc. etc. etc. Two thumbs way up!!
Mike
Totoro (Sea Sprite 23 #626)
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