We went with the Awlcraft 2000 solely for its ability to be touched up. These boats are commercial operated boats, and they get scratched up pretty good. A2000 is nowhere near as hard(and scratch resistant) of a paint as the regular Awlcraft. Its comparable to catalyzed premium automotive paint. In hind site, we are having to repaint that boat again this year because it has so many scratches, it faster to redcoat the whole boat rather than just repair. We should have painted it with regular Awlcraft. One thing we did is I re-coated within 24 hours over the primer, so we didn't have to sand the primer before topcoat. It was not my call and I was a bit nervous about it. but the paint stuck pretty good. I would have sanded the 545 before topcoat, but I wasn't paying the prep guys, the boat owners were. Awlgrip primers are the real deal, they are nothing like automotive primers and most automotive painters are lost with them. 545 sands like concrete, and the filling primer doesn't sand anywhere near as easy as automotive primers. Auto primers use a lot of talc and filler to make it easy to sand. This stuff absorbs moisture and causes problems down the road in marine applications. I would rather spray auto paint over marine primers than marine topcoat over auto primers(still better to stay with recommended marine paints)I really want to spray some Alex seal. Its a much improved paint over Awlcraft, offering more colors, effects, and its able to be spotted. There's another paint company that's making a comparable paint, but I cant remember the name( its made here in SC). Regardless, its expensive. That parasail boat used 1 full gallon on 545(with activator 1 gal) and 1 gallon of top coat( 1/2 gallon of activator), has a gallon of thinner. All added up it was close to $800 in materials
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