Boat paint schemes

Dragging up an old topic (hey, it's a slow day..).

- What type of paint can be applied (successfully) over gelcoat (let's assume properly de-waxed, sanded, primed)? Automotive?

- Can you "paint" with gelcoat? Say, with an HVLP sprayer (someone said the Wagner power painter, but I don't know how that'd stand up to polyester resin)

- Are dark paints REALLY going to mess up the hulls in Southern (FL, TX, etc) sunshine? Have they fixed this issue with today's technologies? Let's assume the hulls are covered while being stored, and are uncovered during weekend regattas and transport to/from locations.

- Would it be easier/more cost effective to just apply decal "wraps" to the hull sides similar to what they have on vehicles?

The green-fleck paint comment re-kindled an interest in what paint schemes would look neat on beachcats...

If I were only so talented as be able to paint... Jake's blue hulls looked so sweet....

The Blue boat(s)(I own the other one) are gel-coat ,laid up at the factory.
Imron works and I think pretty much most auto paints will.Marine paints come in lotsa colors also.

The other question is how much weight does painting the hulls add to the boat and is this weight significant?

You will probably remove more weight in preparing the existing gelcoat for paint than two pack polyurethane will add. The two pack covers incredibly well and provides a surface that is much harder than the gelcoat it covers. Even when rollered and tipped off the paint coat is unbelievably thin (you lose solvent and hence weight during curing). Prepare well and do the job properly first time, DON'T SKIMP. Sanding off a coat of two pack is several times more difficult/time consuming than sanding gelcoat.

Cheshirecatman

The two part linear polyurethane coatings are also used extensively to coat aircraft so their spec. sheets will give you the weight usually in G/M**2. I weighs almost nothing. Abzco Nobel owns Awlgrip, Interlux, and several aerospace lines. Imron (Dupont) and Polthane (Sherwin Williams) are two other top brands. You can get great deals on e-bay for surplus paint. Since it's a thermosetting plastic like epoxy, there is essentially unlimited shelf life. For instance I bought a three gallon kit of Awlgrip II for $150 - this is $700 retail and enough paint to cover a bunch of catamarans. I have also purchased half gallon kits of Polane for $75 that includes 2 qts. of paint base, 1 qt. of catalyist, and 1 qt. of reducer.

Kevin,

are you saying that the shelf life of epoxy is virtually unlimited as long as it is kept at the right temperatures and in closed containers?

I am under the impression that those paints are somewhat more dangerous to the respiratory system, and require special equipment to apply (positive pressure air respirator, etc).

Am I off base?

Like breathing airborne super glue. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Jake has a done a great job over the years designing vinyl graphics for our boats. The stuff is light weight/durable and has never peeled off accidently (even after beach landings at the T500). Here's a pic of our latest Infusion.

I suspected those decal "wraps" might be the lowest maintenance way to go. That you state they are durable enough for a season or two sounds promising.

I'm sure they're more cost effective than paint/gelcoat, and a LOT less work...

Here's a pic of the other side of the boat.

[img]http://www.twinhulls.com/08ldrace/pages/DSC_2106.html[/img]

I'll bet the chicks dig that....

Plus vinyl isn't a permanent thing. Don't like it?,just peel it off.

I'll try to address the question about toxicity. People have a huge range of opinions on this - some extremists will not approach the stuff in anything less than a space suit. So, I will state for the record I am a moderate - I don't want to poison myself but I want a great finish.
There is a toxic solvent in LPU paints called DiIsocyanate. Like most chemical agents your risk to this is proportional to your cumulative exposute. If you spray boats every day you need a positive pressure respirator - no doubt about it. If you spray one boat a year it may be acceptable to use a half mask chemical cartidge respirator with certain precautions. The precautions are that you do a fit check of the mask and always use brand new cartridges every day you paint. One reason this particular solvent is dangerous is that it is oderless so, unlike solvents with an oder, you have no way to know when your chemical cartridges are used up - hence change them every time. This is only my approach - everyone should read up on the subject until you are comfortable with risk level.

Rolf - I have used 10 year old AwlGrip in unopened containers with great results. I have read the base is extremely stable and the catlyst (activator) some what less so.

I'm votin' with Kevin. (it's "Akzo Nobel" btw.)

AwlGrip ROCKS! You paint it once, you don't need to paint again. Hell, AG even BRUSHES on well. AG might kill me, but I'm gonna look real good on the way out.

The below picture is of a something like 10 year old paint job. The splash graphics are painted, like the rest of the boat, with AwlGrip. the text graphics are vinyl

I am just about to undertake painting my 1970's Tornado, and it's going to be done with awlgrip and a HVLP air gun.

Any pictures of well painted cats would be great as inspiration.

I uploaded a Tornado that I found somewhere on the web, The paint job looks great, but the dark black color concerns me for head absorption.

Any other nicely painted boats around?

Breakwater,
Sorry I don't have any good picture of my Tornados. If the dark boat you saw had Marstrom hulls the temperature dosen't really matter. These boats are built of s-glass prepreg and baked in an oven. So the heat distortion tepmperature of the resin in in excess of 250 degrees or 350 degrees depending on the material used. For older hulls made of wet layup polyester, dark colors could be an issue.

Kevin

tami, that is an amazing looking cat...

its soo amazing that it can turn a trimaran in to a cat <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thank you, Andrew.

Let's see if this works:

Tami,
That is pretty cool. I still can't seem to get still pictures posted much less video! Is this the same boat in the earlier picture with the new paint job?
Kevin

This is the same boat in the earlier picture, and that paint job in all cases ;-) was done about 10 years ago.

That's my point, that is, that AwlGrip may be scary, but it sure is good stuff. The rudder case, which is of wood, had begun to 'check' and so Handsome Husband Jay wanted to repaint it. Not having a compressor and gun thanks to Miz Katrina, HHJ decided to go the brushing route, so he added the prescribed amount of brushing additive to the paint mix. Stuff went on so smoothly it looks sprayed and you wouldn't know it was brushed (well there are a couple sags, but that's not the paint's fault.) No rolling and tipping necessary, just brush it on with a good brush.


Re: posting pictures: At the 'reply' screen, fourth icon from the left is the 'image' icon. Click on it, and there will be a dragdown menu with four 'floating' options. Click on the one of interest, and it will then ask you for the link to your image. Apparently there's not an option to upload images (or video) directly, but you can host your image at Flickr or Photobucket, etc. (I like Flickr, it's a Yahoo product so no extra signup.) and then use the aforementioned menu to link to your hosted image. The icon to the right of the 'image' icon, or the fifth from the left, is the 'video' icon and it works in the same way: a dialogue window pops up, and you insert the link to your video wherever it might be hosted. Saves space here on catsailor.com's servers to link to other hosts rather than receiving uploaded images/video.

Flight Risk was painted 3 years ago with high quality 3 part(paint, catalyst, clearcoat) auto paint(Viper Red and Corvette Yellow, PPG I think), and it's holding up very well. Except where I scrape it off! It sits out for about 8 months of the year. (How do we add pics now?)

Dave

OK Tami, I followed your directions but it appears to post the URL instead of a picture. Does this show up as an image to you? Kevin [img]http://www2.snapfish.com/slideshow/...75526/a=130509924_130509924/t_=130509924[/img] [img]

I hope you can see her in my post, 'cause I can. Wow. I went thru some stuff to get to this point.

I do believe that 'snapfish' doesn't allow direct links or something.

What I did is:

I copied and pasted the URL from your post, so I could get to your Snapfish page. Then I copped the image to my desktop and looked at the image's name. Then I went back to your Snapfish page and viewed its source and did a search for the image name. I then tried just that link, which was unbelievably long, in the dialogue box here at catsailor. That didn't work. So I said fuggit and took your image and hosted it at my Flickr site. When I'm logged into Flickr, and I click on the large size version of the image, I get options on that page for a link or the url for the image itself. That's what I pasted in at the dialogue box here.

I suspect this is a Snapfish issue, but someone else might can answer that for sure.

ANYHOO,

Very very nice looking boat! is she a Newick?

Thanks Tami. She is my own design. Took me four years to build.

Flight Risk pics. Thanks for the attachment directions Rick!

Dave

I like this one, looks like paint but I will do something similar in decals on mine

Paul

http://www.f-boat.com/pages/News2/AucklandF-9AX.html

so would a polyurethane resin paint such as interlux work?

Yes,
Interthane Plus is very similar to Awlgrip. People have their favorite brands but honestly, I don't see a big performance difference between the ones I have used (interthane, awlgrip, polane, imron)

how much paint is needed for a 16 foot boat? say if i used awlgrip

One quart is more than you need but that's the smallest package for awlgrip. You would need a quart of base color and a pint of activator plus some thinner. I used to paint tornados with a quart of Interthane Plus and always had leftovers.

How much weight would a finish of Awlgrip or similar add to an 18 ft cat?

I am looking at the spec sheet for Desothane which is made by PPG. Very much like the other brands. .oo75 lbs/ft**2 or 36.6 g/M**2 per 1 mil coat of paint. Takes two coats.

Kevin

to answer Poulsen's question, two things:

1. You ought to sand off the gelcoat, or nearly all of it, anyway. Since gelcoat is heavier than paint, it'll be a wash;

2. How good a painter are you? Your ability to lay paint will vary its thickness.

So how much sandind is required (sounds like a lot) how do you know when you have completely sanded down the clear? does anyone have any links to the paint (places to buy?)
thanks a lot
P.s. i am new here and i love this site!!
JonBrown

When I sanded out my NACRA Sq I used an electric sander, so it really wasn't that hard work

I began with a pretty aggressive grit paper. It might have been in the 60 range, but for some reason I keep thinking it was 85

I sanded, all over the boat, front to back, then went back to front again. When I just began to see black or bits of a different colour beneath the grey (the old NACRA had grey gelcoat) I called that 'done.'

I didn't sand every last bit of gelcoat off, and since I was painting over, I am pretty sure my finish sanding was in the 80-grit range to give 'tooth' to the surface for good paint adhesion.

Once painted, THAT was when the work commenced... wet-sanding, by hand, to a 1200 grit finish

As far as places to buy... well, unless you just want to deal with purchasing a rig, you can take the COMPLETELY PREPPED!!! sanded, taped off whatever ou want to block, that sort of thing... hulls to a commercial paint house and get them to hit your boat.

thanks for the quick reply. about how long did it take you to prep the boat? how much sandpaper did you go through? and the sander you used i am assuming a palm orbital?
thanks again
JonBrown

so you wet sanded the whole boat after painting? and how did you apply the paing? thanks.

I dunno, it was some hours, but I don't recall it being God-awful brutal long.

I don't know how much sandpaper

I used two different sanders: one a random-orbital that had been in an auto body shop rather large-ish rectangular thing, and also a palm orbital

I prepped the boat and then brought it to a friend who is in the industrial painting business as in, shipbuilding yard type stuff. Boat is 'Buoy Yellow' two-part something industrial, hell I don't even know what the paint is, but I expect it's an LP. It's been good paint.

My trimaran is AwlGrip.

Good source of sandpaper: www.supergrit.com
for paint: http://stores.ebay.com/Wheres-Waldos-Stuff