awlgrip paint

[926bill]

Let us know how it turns out. I'm thinking about doing mine in the spring.

[BenFishin]

Couple of suggestions.

Rolling and tipping of a two component paint cannot be compared to rolling and tipping of a single component urethane such as Easypoxy.
EasyPoxy is much more forgiving. It looks great, however, its a 5year paint job, where most Two part urethane coatings are 10-15 dependant upon the up keep.

The ultimate deciding factor in your finish coat is all prior coats and most importantly SURFACE PREPARATION. I would highly recommend practiceing on a piece of plexi or similiar, smooth substrate. The primer will need to be sanded perfectly smooth. Before you sand try applying a form of a "guide coat" (guide coat is a mist coat of a contrasting color, when you start sanding every single hint of the guide coat color should be gone before you topcoat- this ensures a perfectly smooth substrate) id sand with 320 or >. Make sure you follow the manufacters Dry to recoat, envrionmental requirements to a T.

As for rolling and tipping, dont even try it by yourself. One person needs to roll and one person needs to tip. The combination of the base and catalyst mixed together causes a chemical cure in lieu of a air cure as in EasyPoxy. You want to allow the as-applied coating to have as much time to "lay-out" as possible before it starts to kick. You need to stay right behing the person rolling with an unloaded brush. (keep a thing of thinner beside you to keep the brush unloaded and dry). The idea of the tipping is to only take down the stipple caused by the roller. The brush shouldnt be drug through the paint, only enough to touch the peaks but not the valleys (if that makes sense). A huge no-no is to never go back and fix anything. if you get going and notice a run or a bug or piece of dust a few feet back. forget it! You will be able to take care of it prior to any subsequent coats. sanding with some 1000 grit will do the trick but only if its cured enough to sand (should not be able to leave a finger nail print in the coating with minimal pressure) If you are unhappy with the way the first one or two coats layed out, dont settle for less. Let it cure up and go to it with some wet sanding. Your finish job is only going to be as good as your prep work. There is no such thing as too much prep work.

Another good candidate for two part high gloss urethane is PPG Pitthane Ultra. Half the price of the Interlux product and is rather forgiving.

Oh and look at spending around $25-30 for a good quality badger hair or similiar brush. The solvents within 2 part paint will eat up a lot of brush materials and rollers. Phenolic closed cell, solvent resistant is the way to go on the roller.

I think there is a handfull of videos on youtube.com of rolling and tipping as well.

I think this should help.

[awthacker]

Very helpful, thank you. After the 1st coat of primer has been sanded, my question is: does the Perfection go on as thick as the PrimeKote? That stuff was super thick. I'm going to use another half-quart, or so, of primekote to touch up where I over-sanded. Then move on to the topcoat. 220 grit was the finest sanding pads I could find for my 5" palm sander. It worked good, but maybe just a little rough. If I were using 400-800 grit, would I then necessarily be hand-sanding with the block?

[BenFishin]

Yes you will need to use a sanding block. The perfection will go on extremly thin. You will need to get the brushing thinner for it as well. The primer is a high solids coating - meaning it goes on at a high dry film thickness and does not have much solvent to evaporate. However the perfection should go on as thin as you can get it without running. Youre probably looking at 3-4 coats. It will go a long way. Download the applicators manual online, it will tell you the recommended thinning percentages etc... i would highly highly recommend painting something to practice first with the entire system. Small piece of plexi with the primer and the 3 top coats. as for the orbital sander... you may have made a slight mistake as you will be able to see the places where the edge dug in especially up in that big carolina flare portion of the boat. I found this out the hard way.

[Steplift 72']

I believe you'll be way ahead by painting with any reputable paint. I painted with automotive Deltron for a couple hundred bucks....with great results. The stuff is tough and doesn't chip in years of usage. I've rubbed and waxed gelcoat for decades and then found that when properly painted, a fiberglass boat is finally trouble free. Around here the dark water stains the white gelcoat to a nasty brownish orange color, the paint just washes off with soap and water..... enough said.

[awthacker]

Again, this is Interlux Perfection, not Awlgrip. After researching I decided to roll on the Perfection because it claimed to be designed for the do-it-yourselfer and this is my first ever paint job. It has been a monumental task, but it's going well. Today, we applied the second topcoat and I believe three coats will be enough so I hope to complete the job this weekend. The PrimeKote was very thick and required alot of sanding to get it smooth. We went with one coat of primer, then I touched up the thin areas after sanding. The topcoat went on much easier than the primer. Here are some pictures today after the 2nd topcoat.

[awthacker]

I chose Cream and it's a little darker than I hoped, but I think it's the closest match to the original color - you can kinda see on the hull where the stripes protected the original finish. My plan is only to paint above the rubrail, then buff below the rubrail to try and restore the gelcoat (since there was no major cosmetic work done on the hull). The deck was a totally different story.

Some more pics of the sliding hatch, steering assembly, & console. On Sunday, I painted these parts only for my trial. Because that went so well, I attempted to paint the deck by myself on Monday because I got home early from work and was anxious to get going. That was a mistake that resulted in alot of bubbles and alot of drips. Took alot of sanding to get it straightened out. Today, I took a long lunch and my buddy came over to help. It went much better with two, and in my opinion it's the only way to go.