How about a little color?

Its time to do a little painting folks.  Tired of looking at a blotchy, splotchy, indistinguishable hulk?  Me too and we're going to take care of that right now...
A quick rundown on what types of paints are used, where they are used and why they are different.  First is the paint that sits at and below the waterline, the Bottom Paint.  This is a paint that must be able to sit for extended periods of time, submerged, in a marine environment subjected to lots of marine organisms that would just love to eat your pretty little boat hull.  Now, painting a hull with bottom paint isn't always a given.  Generally speaking, its a matter of the boat's intended purpose and one (such as this project) will spend most of its time on a trailer and really doesn't need the benefits (and some drawbacks) of the bottom paint.  Now that leads to the possible alternatives of bottom paint.  One of those being what we call Topside Paint.  This kind of paint is intended generally for the areas above the waterline.  It states right there in black and white not intended for "prolonged use below the waterline".  No one can tell me just what "prolonged" means so we were a little hesitant to use it on a boat that may see up to a week in the water.  So... what to do.  There is another alternative that get us by for now and can be painted later if need be and that is a graphite filled epoxy bottom.  Used typically on kayaks and smaller boats, I decided to give it a try.  Folks tout that it will create a slick-as-snot barrier to rocks and such but I sort of doubt this.  It does seem to be a little slicker than epoxy alone and more importantly leaves a nice black color, I mean jet black.  For my topside paint, I used a 2 part marine urethane paint made by System 3, called WR-LPU.  What's great about this paint is that it is a water based poly which I have used or years building furniture.  Standard respiration and water cleanup are big bonuses for a small shop that can't afford fresh air respiration.  So, on to the process...

Striking the Waterline...
So this waterline is basically the level line that the boat should sit at in the water, loaded..  The designed waterline is the unloaded line that the boat would theoretically sit at which was basically at the corner of the back or the boat and at the front as well.  My calculated Loaded Waterline is the green taped line in the picture to the left.  Its about 3" lower than the DWL.  I used a rotary laser level to establish this and marked the boat all around at that level.  By the way, I decided to try a new tape on the market.  Marketed as Frog Tape, it proved fantastic in both resistance to bleed through of paint and bleed under of paint.  I used both the yellow and green versions and both worked equally well.  There's not much beyond this to say, only that it was pretty easy to get it wavy if you aren't careful.

I found that it was easier to get a nice fair line if I pulled three to four feet at a time and keep that much out as I pulled, letting the tape "fall" in the correct spot.  Not too bad once you get the hang of it.

Graphite Bottom...
The bottom epoxy coating is pretty simple.  It is just a matter of  mixing around 2 teaspoons per ounce of graphite powder (available at epoxy supply houses) with the needed amount of epoxy and roll it on. Put graphite in a clean cup and pour the mixed epoxy in it.  Much easier to mix. The one thing you won't get is a particularly smooth finish and I didn't think it was any problem as this will spend its life resting on a trailer bunk or submerged. 

The bottom received a total of 3 coats and looked pretty decent, or so I thought until I sprayed topside paint and compared the two next to each other.  It definitely looked like a homogenous structure and we could really see a final product emerge.

Primer...

In keeping with the System 3 line of product I used their epoxy primer formulated  for the WR-LPU line of  topcoats and masked up the boat to protect the mahogany transom and the newly epoxied bottom. Craft paper for the back and painter's plastic film for the bottom. I masked off a 1" border on the transom to be painted in what would be a traditional plank-edge fashion; as if the boat were traditionally planked and the ends of the boards were visible to the viewer from the transom.

Here you see the primed boat, ready for its white Bootstripe coat and "striking off" of the Bootstripe itself.  This Bootstripe I speak of is a design element originally meant to separate the topside and bottom paint and adds a sleek look to the boat. 

Now the paint...

My brilliant idea was to paint the white bootstripe paint and the white stem letting the paint spray past the intended line.  What this did was show up as an irregular thick edge in the color coat and eventually required sanding to smooth down, but we'll cover that later...

Once again we used the rotary laser to strike the line and I somehow managed to catch it as it pulsed by.  One thing to note here is that the boat hull's angle changes the width to the human eye.  the more angular, the thinner it will look, the more vertical, the thicker it will look.  That's why you just can't pull a 2" wide piece of tape and have it look the same thickness along the hull.

With the white painted bootstripe and stem masked off, we got ready to spray the color and you folks already know its a very, very retro green (57 Chevy Surf Green or as close as I can get).  S3 doesn't stock the color but the good folks at Sherwin Williams was good enough to sell me the BASF pigment necessary to get close (12oz of Jargon Jade) and  it was a matter of trial and error to get the gallon of white pigmented to the point that we were happy.  Wife loves the color and it looks like something that you would find in the Gulf.

Before re-sand, dull reflection....

 Here's the "almost final" product.  I say this because when it was all said and done we sanded this all back and recoated it.  Now, I know that sounds crazy but the finish was orange peeled like crazy.  You can see a sheen but the surface was too rough and I'll explain why...


 This particular paint is very temperature and pressure sensitive.  My mistake was threefold...
1. Shop temp was too low (60's).
2. Gun tip was too small (should have been 1.8 not 1.3) and was having to spray at 40psi vs. the recommended 25 to 30psi.
3. Paint wasn't thin enough (20% and should have been more like 30% water added).

Not to mention that the bottom looked like crap and was too rough to live with.  So, we climbed back on the bottom and sanded what must be the nastiest epoxy finish to sand ever.  We looked like coal miners but the bottom was smooth.  As we sanded out the sides, we sanded through the sides in places using 220G and 320G paper.  More color, more taping and much better results...

Reflective after 2 clear coats

White Stem which I've been told isn't traditional but is flashy, hell I wore yellow parachute pants in high school and breakdanced for God's sake!

You can still see orange-peel but what a tough finish!  My experience with Waterborne is that once cured, it is much tougher than solvent based.