Paint day

I finished fairing out the cockpit and got a second coat of Epoxy Primekote rolled and sanded.  Jeni finally intervened and said “Will ya’ leave it the F’ alone already?!”.  It’s supposed to rain Monday, so Saturday was the only option for us to paint the 1-part polyurethane Pre-Kote primer and still get a couple of days in the high 70s cure on it.

You guys keeping up with all the Primekote/Pre-Kote, 2-part/1-part b.s.?  Yeah, I get mixed up from time to time as well.  Each one uses a different solvent and 1-part can go over 2-part, but not the other way around.  I did both coats of Primekote by myself in a couple hours each, and basically painted my way around the sides with a roller, down in the cockpit well, and  stepped right out and rolled the last couple feet from the side deck.  No real brushing to speak of.  This time we were working as a team, one rolling on a few passes and the other tipping off the roller lines perpendicular with a clean brush before the edge has a chance to dry.  Two people painting while standing inside of a space 52″ X 28″ X 16″ deep?  Most coffins are larger than that.

Just to see if this was going to work or not we started out by wiping everything down with solvent, and wiping it off with a clean towel before it evaporated.  Next we slightly thinned about half a quart of  Pre-Kote and started out on the locker lids, adjusting the viscosity a couple times until we got it to just flow out the brush strokes after tipping off.  Lids set aside, it was time to tackle the main cockpit.  Working our way around from port to aft, and moving to starboard forward while simultaneously rolling and tipping the cockpit well and sole, all while trying to maintain that ever important “wet edge”.  When you try to paint water-thin wet up against an edge thats already skinned over it ends up looking like hell, but it can be sanded out and fixed on the next coat.  Jeni would roll, roll, roll a load of paint maybe a foot wide and I would step in and brush, brush, brush across her tracks.  Repeat, and be quick about it.  Dancing around each other before the slight breeze dried the paint was a neat trick.

Surprisingly, Jeni and I only had 1 or 2 “verbal exchanges” during the hour and a half of working together in such close proximity, but we pushed on through and managed to get everything primed and a second coat on the dorade boxes.  I need to sand again but I think I’ll only need 1 coat of primer.  Next step is 2, maybe 3 coats of Brightside, and yes it’s a 1-part, and yes we have to roll and tip again.

CockpitPaint from Ramble On on Vimeo.