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Fishman38

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Everything posted by Fishman38

  1. Some sanding and another coat of primer later:
  2. I just went through roughly the same experience rolling on Blue Water Mega Gloss Gold Primer. Didn't thin it but tried to roll it thin. Did not have much paper clogging like you describe but it did seem softer and sanded easier than I expected. One pass with 150 grit removed a lot of the material and a light second pass with 220 removed a lot more, too much in my opinion, but the result was an extremely smooth surface for the next coat. I'm going to thin it a little and spray the next coat and hope for the best.
  3. First coat of primer, rolled on. Believe I'll switch to airless sprayer for next coat.
  4. I'll be at the flipping stage in a couple of weeks. Wondering if anyone has any tips on "flipping" other than "get lots of muscle". It's got to be done on the sloping, short driveway in front of the shop.
  5. Thanks for the nice words PG. She is indeed ready to paint and that will be done in the next couple of weeks after some family obligations. She will be grey below the water line assuming I can find it, white above, and probably grey bump rails. I decided on Blue Water Marine brand based largely on one supplier (RAKA) making Graham's list of recommended suppliers, and BW's claim that their topside Mega Gloss Gold silicone copolymer enamel lasts "five times longer than conventional topside paints". It was a crap shoot for me and I made the choice and ordered it before most of the stuff on the "Painting" thread showed up, Not that I would necessarily change the decision. Claims of ease of application was also a factor. They say brush, roller or spray works. I have both air and airless paint shooters and am thinking of rolling on a couple of coats of primer, sanding after each and spraying one (or should it be two finish coats with (probably) airless sprayer. I welcome any and all suggestions/ recommendations. Paints and painting ain't far removed from rocket science for me. Too much chemistry involved.....my worst subject .
  6. Thanks Striperick. Got too much time and money invested to quit now!
  7. After a little filling and sanding, this is how the chine turned out. Except for a couple more hours of sanding I think she's finally ready for some paint.
  8. Thanks Dale. I re-read his post at the top of this page where he says "the sharper the better" ( had forgotten he had made his comments here and not in a phone conversation), so I'll go ahead and sand it down to a sharp edge in prep for painting. Maybe he'll see this before I shoot it and let me know if it's possible to "put too fine of a point on it" as they say. Pun intended.
  9. Graham said that after glassing I should rebuild the rounded over chine to a sharp corner to reduce the tendency of the water to follow the surface up the side of the boat. Made sense to me and here is the result. Needs a little fine tuning (sanding) obviously. And I'm not sure how sharp to leave this thing. Seems like there needs at least bit of radius to facilitate paint adherence? Graham, if you're reading this should I dull the sharp edge just a tad?
  10. Holy moley, $114 for what could have been a blown fuse??!!! Steel wool has been known to work well to plug mouse holes. On a boat trailer you may need the stainless variety
  11. Thank Paul! Great summary of what I think was said over the previous eight pages OK, I'm thinking single part polyurethane. 1) Does this mean only regular cleaning and maybe waxing or something more? Such as a light sanding and recoating annually? 2) Regarding the "pain of repairing", I assume this is because the uv damaged epoxy is so hard to remove and then replace? These are small (30", six sided) tables, relatively easy to sand with power tools, i.e. no curved surfaces, and the tops only. I will probably make powder coated metal bases.
  12. My apologies in advance for posting a landlubber question on this bluewater forum. But here goes: Does there exist a clear UV protection that will serve as a topcoat over epoxy? Even if it has to be recoated every year. I'm talking for patio tables here folks, not boats. A simple yes or no is fine, but if it's yes, a brand and name (of the product of course) please. The answer probably is somewhere in the foregoing pages here but I can't find it.
  13. If it'll cut cured epoxy I could use one! Got a lot of that to do. The cutting surface looks much like a tool the drywallers used to use but with a different handle. I've had it for years and never had much use for it. I'll try it on the epoxy.
  14. Sounds like you may have learned from the School of Hard Knocks............. Thanks to all for the short course on gel coat, a term which I've heard most of my life when the subject of polyester and epoxy resins came up. Now at least I understand where and why it's used.
  15. PAR, I didn't notice your reply until I had already posted the above. And you basically answered my last question in the above. Thanks to you also! It so happens that I used a mild water/dishwater soap solution to wash my boat today. I've also used an industrial version of scotchbrite for scuffing the surface but didn't think to use it for doing the scrubbing..............duh....... Further, one of the concerns I had for sanding was the risk of getting too deep and into the glass fibers. I got a little more aggressive with the sanding today and was able to cut through at least 95% of the fisheyes, dimples whatever without getting into the glass. Which tells me that the orange peel effect was not as pronounced as it was on the first coat and if I'm careful about contamination and temperature the problem may go away. For now I think scotchbrite will take care of the rest. DA, dual action. again duh........ I use a palm type random orbital and also a random orbital polisher with a 9" (about) custom cut piece of 80 grit adhered to the pad with a spray adhesive, which works very well.
  16. Thank you very much Howard! Really! The reason I asked that question, a neighbor of mine, who has been buying, restoring, selling boats for years and has family connections to local boat stores, stopped by and seemed puzzled when I had no plans to finish mine with gelcoat, but with paint. So I was concerned that maybe I was making a mistake by finishing with paint. Which is also a type of epoxy if I understand it correctly....... One more question: One of the selling points for fiberglass boats has always been low maintenance, meaning no re-painting. How does paint vs gelcoat compare in that regard? For that matter, is gelcoat an optional alternative for our builds? Just curious, since I've already spent big bucks for paint.
  17. Different question: I never see any mention of gelcoat on this forum. Is there a place for gelcoat in the fiberglass over plywood build?
  18. I'm using B&B epoxy (2:1), slow, which someone in an earlier post here says does not blush. I can see no evidence of blush. Yesterday I wiped down a section with a water wet sponge, no soap, and could see no evidence on the sponge nor on the surface that anything was being removed. any contamination would just about have to be dust (there's always dust in the air here). The shop is heated but with piped in hot water, no petroleum. I have a can or two of diesel oil and such in there not necessarily tightly closed but the stuff is not very volatile. Temperature could be a problem. I haven't watched it very closely and it could be in the low sixties F but don't think it's ever been below sixty when it was applied, but maybe afterward while still curing. Another post above I think said to use water to remove blush, no mention of soap. But if the stuff is waxy, it would seem soap or some type of solvent would be necessary. BTW I have used denatured alcohol when wiping down to remove dust. Anyway the problem now is mostly how to remove the dimples, so I guess it's back to the long board. PAR, what is "DA work"? One more thing could be that I need to be more careful of contamination during the mixing process. I use the same old aluminum cook pot to mix the larger batches.
  19. After the glass fabric is down and covered with a couple more coats of (unthickened) epoxy once the stuff is cured I have a sort of orange peel finish, which makes it next to impossible to sand to a level finish. I use a roller, get a lot of bubbles, tip with a roller to remove the bubbles and still get the orange peel effect. Is there anything I can do to prevent this? The stuff doesn't seem to be "self leveling" as I had supposed
  20. Alan can the two or three steps you describe be done without waiting for complete curing between the steps?
  21. Thanks Hightech. So far the only evidence I've seen of having a problem with amine blush, although I admit to not knowing exactly what to look far, is stuff building up on sandpaper and clogging it. I did not realize blush might be causing that until rereading about it in the West users manual a few minutes ago. I had assumed it was caused by sanding epoxy that was not fully cured. From what I had remembered reading, if blush were present I should be able to see it and definitely had not. Also, when "sanding" with the Scotchbright as I described above, I did not have any clogging as I had with the sandpaper. Something I read somewhere in the last year led me to believe that humidity was a factor in causing the stuff to form and that maybe in the dry climate we have out here, typically very low humidity, the stuff doesn't form. Although I see now that West says it's a good idea to assume it's there anyway. Live and learn I guess. Hopefully I've not caused any serious damage. The glass definitely appears to be well bonded. Another oversight I just discovered is I am one layer of glass short on the chines, so I'll have to add a strip of tape over what's already there, whereas Graham recommends it go down first, not last.
  22. Thanks for the kind words Hightech. And thanks for the suggestion. I had been trying to think of a way to lock the roller. In the future I'll use the high-tech method. I finished the glassing on Saturday but for a couple of reasons did not get any additional layers of epoxy down. One reason was both my assistant (my son) and I (especially I) were about out of gas. There was a time when I could put in 14,15 hour days but those days are long gone. The other reason was there were some flaws (rough spots) that needed fixing and the only way I could think of to fix them was to let it cure then do a little sanding. Which I did and it seems to have worked out ok. My concern now is prepping the cured surface so as to get a good bond to the next (epoxy) coat. What I did was take a 3M scouring pad (Scotchbright?) like my wife uses in the kitchen, and using my orbital sander with a sheet of 80 grit clamped in the normal way, rest it on the (dry of course) scouring pad and thoroughly go over the whole exterior surface. I looked at the surface under a magnifier and it seemed to be fairly well scratched except maybe for the deepest part of the fabric grid. I'm hoping that will work. I plan to lay two more coats tomorrow, the second while the first is still tacky.
  23. Me too. There's definitely something going on. The log-in, for one, doesn't work the way it used to. The first time I logged in and saw your last post it said posted at 2:22PM. A few minutes later it said posted at 3:22PM. A similar thing happened with Hightechmarine's post above. First time I looked at it it said 6:29, next time it said 5:29, now it's back to 6:29. Another problem I'm having is I can no longer select a segment from someone post on here, your question for instance about whether I used a roller or brush to apply the epoxy, quote it in a new post to make it clear what I'm replying to. I'm not ruling out problems with my laptop, but I have two other PC's here that acted the same.
  24. I too am wondering what happened to your thread. There have been some other weird goings on. You might click on "contact Frank" at the top right hand of the page and let him know that it's missing. Jerry aka J.O.
  25. Hey Phishunt; Yes I'm pretty much following the procedures outlined in the book "The Gougeon Brothers on Boat Construction" which recommends an initial coat of epoxy before glassing. They also said "some builders prefer to let the initial coat fully cure, wipe it with a damp cloth and sand lightly before applying the cloth" which I did except I omitted the "wipe with a damp cloth" part. I did give it a rather thorough "light" sanding then I wiped it down with denatured alcohol to remove the dust and fingerprint oil. They seemed to be recommending "filling depressions and voids with low density filler" after the initial coat of epoxy. I deviated from that by (1) buffing the voids such as inadequately filled screw holes and the like (which seems a little anal but I did it anyway)with a Dremel tool sanding burr (which is one of the few uses I've ever found for a Dremel tool) then (2) brushing a coat of unthickened epoxy on the other lows then (3)following immediately (at least while it's still tacky) with thickened epoxy and (4) trowelling it back to slightly above the surrounding surface then after curing (4) sanding it all back to level and then wiping it down and rolling on an initial full coat of epoxy using a foam roller. By the way, the foam roller I used was yellow and came from Ace Hdwe which, being concerned about whether it was suitable for epoxy, I called the West Systems hotline and was assured it would be fine. I've never used a foam roller for anything before and it did leave a lot of tiny bubbles that I had to "tip" using a foam brush.
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