2023 Topsides Painting - Part 1

 Claire enjoying a couple hours of "vacation" from work:

Topsides Painting is probably the most dreaded chore. For boats without gelcoat, this coating needs re-applying every few or 10 years depending on the product you use.

This time we chose AlexSeal. 

Biggest reasons are 

1) it's reparable 

2) you don't have to "tip" it after rolling it on.

It's a 2-part polyeurathane.

Here is the excitement step by step.

-We taped the teak toe-rail bow to stern

- taped the bottom paint line to not get black paint on our sander or roller. 

We planned to paint over the bootstripe, to make a new one later.

- We spot-repaired, then sanded the the whole topsides, then

- applied 3 coats of primer (waiting 2-3+ hrs between each)

- sanded the whole thing

-added a higher bootstripe (waterline) tape - where the old one was

- painted first topcoat day 1 so far

Ya have to add activator to the primer, mix and wait at least 15 minutes. then add reducer and mix thoroughly.

We used mohair rollers rolled tape on them to get all the extra fibers off.

Once ya start rolling, you are supposed to keep going without stopping. Kind of impossible, because you have to move the scaffolding and tack it down one more time before you paint the next section. It helped to have 2 ppl to get that done without much of a break ( which could leave a permanent line )

We love our scaffolding. Great for tall boats. Justice is more than 12 feet to the top rail when on the hard.

locking wheels, of course.

Before each sanding, we spray the side with some black spray paint, then sand it off until all the black is gone, 

and a smooth milky white finish is left. Careful not to go past that to the boat's protective layer ( too far). It's noisy with the vibrating sanders. Espec the 2 of us next to each other.

The shine after the first of 3 final topcoat. Encouraging, but the the verdict for the first layer was to see it the morning after, to see how smooth it is. 

One last look back at the first coat....

the morning will tell how it "spread out". We'll see how smooth it is.