Care of paint job

[JerryF]

It's not just the bottom that you have to worry about. Since I have been making test runs on a local lake, I have gotten a lot of dings and scrapes on the sides of my GV11. The launch ramp has a dock with galvanized steel framing and no padding of any kind. Even using fenders, the boat bumps the dock here and there as waves from water skiers hit it.

A quick pass with some 320 sandpaper, a few swipes with an artists paint brush and it looks as good as it did before (at least from a distance). I figure this effort will diminish as time goes by and the boat will just have to accumulate dings until I feel like fixing them.

I believe if you are going to use the boat as nature intended, you just have to consider the finish as work in progress.

Jerry

[jasonmcintosh]

I'm going to build a GF18 and I don't want to paint it, but I think that if I ever intend to sell the boat, it had better have a nice paint job. It'll be hard enough selling a home-built boat, but one that's just varnished will be even harder. Of course, maybe I should wait to paint it when I hope to sell it, and live with a varnish exterior until then.

See any problem tryint to paint a boat that's been varnished? Would I have to strip the varnish off?

Jason

[Steven]

Just got back from fishing with a buddy in my Canoe. I painted it with water based Latex paint. I found a primer at Lowes for priming slick surfaces for paint such as tile and fiberglass. I used this and then rolled and brushed on the Latex. I Used a low gloss paint to dimish the imperfect fairing job I did on the inside. I USE the canoe and when I get to shore I don't want to be bothered with worriying about scratching a $23.00/qt paint. My landings consist of rowing as hard as I can so I glide as far up on shore as I can. No need to get my feet wet that way. I drag it out and don't worry abot the scratches. It has a layer of 6oz. glass on the bottom, and I haven't come close to scratching into it. I figure I'll just sand off a layer of paint at the end of each season, and put on a coat of $6.00 paint. I have bought the plans for th GF16. The one thing I will do differently is put a layer of 6oz. glass tape over the rub rail. This takes most of the beating and without glass it dents rather easily. Havent' decided on what paint I'll use yet.