Here is the Color

This weekend I began painting the bottom of my boat. I used Supermarine Marine Paint because it came highly recommended by another builder. There were several other reasons, like self leveling, durability, you could apply it with a roller or brush and low odor. The roller application and the low odor were very important because I am doing this in my basement.

I found the color to be just as advertised "low odor", but the primer (664 primer) odor was very strong. Lucky for me, I was able to open the outside door in the Florida room and turn a fan on. That helped a lot. The other thing that was helpful (and important), was my wife was out of town this weekend visiting my daughter in Chicago. Boy, was I glad that I did not have to listen to her saying, "Boy does that smell". I already new that. The smell from the primer went away in 24 hours. Just in time for her return. Life is good.

The paint process is going well. A coat of primer and wait 2 hours and lightly sand. While I was waiting, my brother Gary and I drove to Public Lumber in Detroit and picked up some more Mahogany Plywood. When I returned it was time for the second coat of primer, then 2 more hours to kill so I took off to airport and changed the oil in my airplane. Then it was time to apply the color (300MT Burgundy, SM-1000 Revolution). The color went on great and flowed out nice. Now I will wait for 48 hours, lightly sand and apply a second coat of color.

A couple of things that I did, that worked out good for me were that I lightly sanded between each coat of primer and color with 220 grit paper. I also went to the dollar store and bought a small ladle. Using the ladle was an easy way for me to measure the 10% thinner that I needed to add to the color. Another thing that I was worried about was when to pull the tape. I used the green tape. This green tape is great and leaves a nice line. I painted both coats of primer and the color with the same tape. I waited 30 minutes after applying the color and then pulled the tape off. No problems at all, the tape came off the boat great and no paint came with it.

Several people have asked if I am going to paint the whole boat and the answer is No. Just the bottom of the boat and a few inches on the side will have paint. Everthing else will be Mahogany. I am thinking about adding a small vinyl gold and/or black accent strip between the burgundy and wood.