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Thread: Commander 295

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  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2011
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    Commander 295

    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

  2. #2
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    May 2011
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    Deck prep and trim masking
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  3. #3
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    May 2011
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    Trim has been painted, ready for re-masking for the deck paint.
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  4. #4
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    May 2011
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    Deck paint complete. Some hardware, only that located in the trim areas, was reinstalled before deck paint. This was to prevent damage to the fresh deck paint due to potential dropped tools, gobbed up sealants, hobnailed boots, etc...
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  5. #5
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    and a few more....and that's the end
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  6. #6
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    Sep 2008
    Location
    Brooksville, FL
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    Bill

    She sure is looking good. It's amazing what a coat of paint can do to make a boat look years younger...... Hmmmm wonder what a coat of paint would do for me. :-)

    So what kind of paint did you use and how did you deal with the non-skid?
    JERRY CARPENTER - C147
    A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiam.

  7. #7
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    May 2011
    Location
    Cleveland, OH
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    I used Interlux Epoxy Pre Kote and Interlux Perfection...I love that stuff...with my roller of preference and tipped with a foam brush (see text above) for the trim. And my first time with KiwiGrip...which I also got to enjoy and will never go back to Perfection with beads... KiwiGrip is a whole new animal... cool stuff

  8. #8
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    and thank you, Amos. It is like climbing a mountain...lots of hours in there.

  9. #9
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    Sep 2008
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    Bill

    I have to say for a rolled and tipped paint job I do not see any indication in the pictures that it was not sprayed. Nice work. And another Kiwi Grip convert to boot. :-)

    And per your response to c_amos I feel your pain about the number of hours of work that goes into these projects.
    JERRY CARPENTER - C147
    A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiam.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Pensacola, FL
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    724
    Absolutely beautiful!

    Nice job, thanks for taking the extra time to write it up and post the pictures!


    s/v 'Faith'

    1964 Ariel #226
    Link to our travels on Sailfar.net

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Camden, NC
    Posts
    283
    Excellent write up on how to proceed if doing a paint job. Thanks for tips and the photos really show how well it can be done if taken the time and doing all the prep properly. Wow, I see you have had some items rechromed, looks good. Why did you switch the original cleats to those stainless ones? Also, what are those tubular brackets flanking the backstay chainplate? And lastly, is the color of the kiwi grip you have applied one of their "stock" colors or did you have a paint shop tint it to your color choice?

    Thanks for the detailed photo spread!
    Respectfully,
    Chance Smith
    (Formerly) Sea Sprite 23 #760 (Heritage)
    (Formerly) Commander #256 (Ceili)

  12. #12
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    May 2011
    Location
    Cleveland, OH
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    Chance's Questions...

    Quote Originally Posted by Chance View Post
    Excellent write up on how to proceed if doing a paint job. Thanks for tips and the photos really show how well it can be done if taken the time and doing all the prep properly. Wow, I see you have had some items rechromed, looks good. Why did you switch the original cleats to those stainless ones? Also, what are those tubular brackets flanking the backstay chainplate? And lastly, is the color of the kiwi grip you have applied one of their "stock" colors or did you have a paint shop tint it to your color choice?

    Thanks for the detailed photo spread!
    First, Chance...I was not intending to do a "restoration" but rather an updating or refitting...modernizing, if you will. For guidance, I think of the question: "If the boat were to be built today, how would she be outfitted."

    Cleats: I never really cared for the marinium varieties used by a lot of builders at that time, and I wanted bright finishes after rechroming the other parts. I suppose the alternative would have been to reg the marinium parts re-anodized. The stemhead fitting was a work of art when I got it back from the chrome shop..specializing in motorcycle parts.

    The "tubular brackets" are actually components of the boarding ladder. You can see more details about it in the thread "Boarding ladders" in the tech section of the forum.

  13. #13
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    Sep 2001
    Location
    Northern MN
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    Outstanding work, Bill. And a great blow-by-blow write up that seems to include just about everything one could think of. It reads a lot less painful than all the hours you put into it I'm sure. You have some serious shine on your hardware there and I noticed a set of shiney somethings on either side of the backstay chain plate...whuchagot there?
    My home has a keel.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tony G View Post
    Outstanding work, Bill. And a great blow-by-blow write up that seems to include just about everything one could think of. It reads a lot less painful than all the hours you put into it I'm sure. You have some serious shine on your hardware there and I noticed a set of shiney somethings on either side of the backstay chain plate...whuchagot there?
    Those somethings are the boarding ladder....take a look at the thread of that title in the Forum for pictures and description of how it works...

    One of the fun aspects of living in Cleveland is that there is a machine shop, chromer, bronze foundry, custom paint blender, imported hardwood vendor, and much more.....everybody you need. Oh, and also ideal warehouse space for rent..cheap. Oh, and a Great Lake full of big water sailing...

  15. #15
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    May 2011
    Location
    Cleveland, OH
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    Kiwi Grip:

    I used a custom color, but I could have easily used their standard...I think I ended up about the same place. I did find it quite easy to color by the local Sherwin Williams store (not home depot!). The guy spent 10 minutes punching his calculator, then blended it up purposefully.

    I bought white for a reason: painting my headliner inside the boat. I did my best to put a decent surface on the factory roughness...made worse by fiddling through the last 40 years...then rolled on a couple of coats of white Kiwi Grip using a foam roller. The idea was to make the surface uniformly rough so that the whoppies weren't as obvious. This is a subjective opinion, but I'd say it worked rather well. Looks better than the factory original white-grey-black fleck budget housepaint, certainly.

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