Believe it or not, Zinnser products get used in my guitar work, too. Mostly 123 primer, since it's shellac-based, but occasionally something else is called for. They make uniformly excellent stuff.
Got your color scheme worked out, @MAPleSyrupActual?
"If I ever needed to hunt in a tuxedo, then this would be the rifle I'd take." - okie john
"Not being able to govern events, I govern myself." - Michel De Montaigne
Huh. Okay then, now I actually feel pretty good about that plan. I guess I'll run with it, thanks guys!
My plan, colour-wise, is to rip off the look of a boat I happen to like:
Royal blue hull, rubrails clearcoated, red antifouling, white deck. Off-white interior just to dial down the eyeball-searing days of summer. It's got classic enough lines that I think a pretty traditional colour scheme is the way to go.
The only thing left I really need to decide is whether I want to tint the anti-skid, which is currently bright white. It might be better in an oyster white or light tan or something. I guess I might do the interior sidewalls light blue, but I'm not quite sure about that yet. It has to be light enough that everything is very visible against it, but not so much that my eyes hurt if I forget sunglasses. A light blue is a pretty classic interior for a skiff, but so is a grey.
But the big decisions are done, at least.
This is a thread where I built a boat I designed and which I very occasionally update with accounts of using it, which is really fun as long as I'm not driving over logs and blowing up the outboard.
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ilding-a-skiff
Love that color.Originally Posted by Maple Syrup Actual
Huh. Okay then, now I actually feel pretty good about that plan. I guess I'll run with it, thanks guys!
My plan, colour-wise, is to rip off the look of a boat I happen to like:
Royal blue hull, rubrails clearcoated, red antifouling, white deck. Off-white interior just to dial down the eyeball-searing days of summer. It's got classic enough lines that I think a pretty traditional colour scheme is the way to go.
The only thing left I really need to decide is whether I want to tint the anti-skid, which is currently bright white. It might be better in an oyster white or light tan or something. I guess I might do the interior sidewalls light blue, but I'm not quite sure about that yet. It has to be light enough that everything is very visible against it, but not so much that my eyes hurt if I forget sunglasses. A light blue is a pretty classic interior for a skiff, but so is a grey.
But the big decisions are done, at least.
Today's update is pretty simple: the graphite is on the bottom.
I ran it a little further up the chines than dead level, just because I figure they're likely to catch more rocks when I pull in at our beach.
I didn't go to the trouble of really trying to get a mirror finish on it because it'll just get covered with antifouling anyway. I just heated it up and rolled it on.
Probably get primer on this week.
Oh, hang on...'graphite on the bottom' explains nothing to anyone who doesn't do this exact thing.
For abrasion resistance, I like to mix up epoxy with about 30% powdered graphite. The graphite mixes and bonds well with the epoxy so you get this slippery, hard coating that is extremely waterproof, and gives you a pretty tough wear surface. In this case I'm putting antifouling on top of it but still, our bay is full of oysters and I'll be running it up onto the beach a lot, so a bit of extra wear resistance is worthwhile.
Ordinarily on a trailer boat I might not bother with antifouling but sometimes we might be at the cabin for pretty long periods and the summer before last, there was a barnacle bloom that overwhelmed the usually-adequate (although aging) paint on our big boat. In two weeks the hull was covered, it was nuts. So rather than deal with that, I figure I'll just roll on a layer of antifouling, and not worry about it.
This is a thread where I built a boat I designed and which I very occasionally update with accounts of using it, which is really fun as long as I'm not driving over logs and blowing up the outboard.
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ilding-a-skiff
How well does the graphite mixture hold up?
Pretty well. It does wear, I guess a bit like a pencil, which as a writer seems appropriate. But pretty slowly; my little wooden sailing dinghy got the same treatment and the only spots with meaningful wear were on the corners of the skeg. But the hull surfaces just had scuff marks, despite being rowed to and from the shore five times a week for six months or so, grounded each time, usually on rocks or oysters, and dragged up onto a log where I used to keep it. So it's a wear surface, not impenetrable, not invulnerable, but it does a lot better than just fiberglass with gelcoat or paint, that's for sure. It's pretty tough. In this case as a substrate for antifouling I think it'll be pretty much permanent. You'd really have to be powering it onto oyster beds regularly to wreck it.
This is a thread where I built a boat I designed and which I very occasionally update with accounts of using it, which is really fun as long as I'm not driving over logs and blowing up the outboard.
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ilding-a-skiff
For reasons I can't explain this continues to be my favorite thread on PF.
Well, first coat's on:
I found one section with about eight pinholes, and a couple more little flaws on the other side.
But it's pretty good. I'll sand it down today and see how it looks but I'll be painting soon, I think.
This is a thread where I built a boat I designed and which I very occasionally update with accounts of using it, which is really fun as long as I'm not driving over logs and blowing up the outboard.
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ilding-a-skiff
Second coat of primer. Wasn't much to fix after the first; might have used two oz of Quikfair. It's funny, I bought a 1.5 pint pack three boats ago, then, before my previous boat, bought a second 1.5 pint pack because I figured the next boat would require more than I had left.
I think it's possible I'll finish this boat without ever opening the second pack. I really try to have things fair at the glassing stage and I guess this is the result.
Anyway here's the boat in primer. Oh, I also glued down a wear strip since this thing will get beached constantly. I put it on the keel or skeg or however you want to think of it so I can beat it up on the oysters and barnacles and when it gets wrecked I can replace it for about 30 ice pesos ($20 USD).
This is a thread where I built a boat I designed and which I very occasionally update with accounts of using it, which is really fun as long as I'm not driving over logs and blowing up the outboard.
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ilding-a-skiff
I'd contemplate a work-hardening stainless for your next wear strip. The softness of aluminum makes it dig into rough surfaces like rocks and want to hang up. Also, it's softer so it wears faster. Work-hardening stainless becomes more resistant to wear the more it gets worked. Just gotta pay attention to bimetallic issues if it stays in the water.
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Not another dime.
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