Paint System (and its 17 wrongies)

Painting is now complete, or has had as much time and weight put into it as I can be bothered with.



The system was:
Altex Epoxy High Build Primer #1
Altex Gloss Enamel (Capricorn Yellow) + Rapid Cure Additive
Altex Polyurethane Clear + Brushing Converter + U22 Thinners

While I can't understand how painters can charge so much, I don't think I will ever paint a boat myself again. After all of the effort Ncik and I put into the fairing, the final coat of the yellow was a textbook in all things that can go wrong with paint.

The epoxy high build went on first. I rollered that on, and wanted to tip it off with a brush to remove the roller texture, but I found it had 'cured'/gelled immediately - and the brush wouldn't level it (I knew I should have asked for a thinner for it, but I felt like too much of a n00b wanting to thin high build).
1. So I resigned to the fact I needed to sand the texture out of it.
What I didn't expect was how hard the surface was. I started with 240grit but couldn't make any progress with anything less than 80grit. I couldn't believe it - attacking paint with 80 grit! Sanding it took all day but it did look good eventually.

Next was the clear on the carbon. This was great paint - went on very smoothly and thin. No runs, great finish in one coat. It should have been two coats but I fell asleep watching 300 (for a second time).
2. Before I put 300 on I started watching "Meet the Spartans"
- I got thru 30mins of it before considering it the second paint disaster.
3. Third was falling asleep missing the recoat 4. and 4th was having 2 grass hoppers jump into the clear while it was drying.
The following morning I decided a single coat looked ok, and if any patches needed more I would attack it with scotchbright and patch it.


Finally, the gloss enamel yellow. First coat was put on thinned.
5. This sucked, the colour had no penetration, 6. and worked its way under the masking. The recoat time was listed as overnight (what a stupit way to describe recoat time - how about a number of hours?) Previous occasions when I have used other gloss enamels by the time you have finished one coat down the length of the boat it is ready for another coat. But as soon as I put the roller on,
7. it started to peel the first coat up into little peaks.
I phreaked and left it be, deciding I would eventually need to wet&dry these peaks off. So I left it overnight and when I went to recoat found that
8. I only had enuf paint left to do half of the deck -
so much for the theoretical coverage rate. When I got angry at the guy at altex and threatened to poison his dog he gave me more paint and a tin of rapid cure for gloss enamel.

When I got back to the boat last weekend I found:
9. Little mounds of uncured paint 10. Runs 11. Orange peel 12. Some missed areas around the wing mounts 13. Yellow all over the clear coat on my carbon coasters 14. These weird little peaks that looked like volcanos 15. and the same lack of penetration - the carbon and undercoat were still very prominant.
I keyed up the surface and put two more coats on, this time with the rapid cure additive. While I am now satisfied with the colour penetration, it still has all of the above problems to be wet and dried off. Also
16. the masking leaked in a few places 17. and is a dodgy shape.
I plan to fix these by getting vinyl pinstripes over the boarder between the carbon and the yella. I think silver, 25mm wide would look good.

But i think I will sail it in this condition first. I am so over sanding.