Painting

Finally started painting today. I rolled the first coat of primer from the peak to just aft of the mast this afternoon. I'm using a 2 part epoxy, so I only mixed up about 32 ounces, and ran out a couple feet aft of the mast. Although I didn't get quite as far on the starboard side. That means that I'll need just about the same amount to get all the way to the companionway. It's not as far, but the boat gets wider as you go aft, and is widest at about the companionway.

I'm a little mixing container and roller tray poor, so I need to let the paint harden so I can clean them up and mix the next batch, but I think I can get another round before it gets too dark. The directions on the can say that you should thin it by 20 - 25 percent for brushing (I'm rolling, which is essentially the same thing, vis-a-vis spraying), however, they didn't have the thinner here, so I went without it.

I guess the thinner would have made it go a littler further, but probably wouldn't have covered as well. However, I think that would have been better, since I had trouble getting it to fill small pin holes in the deck -- it was just too thick. I may have to put on a second coat, and if I do, I'll see if I can get the thinner from West Marine.

It looks pretty good so far, i.e., you can't see where I patched the deck, which was the main test. You can see a little bit of a wave, but that's normal. I also fixed a few defects in the non-skid from the factory, so I hope it will look better than brand new once I'm done.

I got a bit of a late start because I ended up pulling the mast step. I'm going to trim the mast and build up shim out of fiberglass scrap, so I wanted to go ahead and pull the existing step and paint under it since it had to come off anyway.

I need to get back to work, but I'll post and update tomorrow on how it all came out. I'll try to take some photos too.

Zoe watch:

She's hanging out under the boat, and happy not to be breathing paint fumes. I closed up the cover a little to keep down the wind while I prepared the deck, mixed the paint, and painted, and it's a little strong. Since I don't do any drugs (other than a little wine and beer), I have zero tolerance for that sort of stuff, so it threw me for a loop when I started mixing -- had to open up the cover door in order to breathe, but I'm okay now.