Newbie Question - Prep & Priming

[benha]

Quick question for the painting cognoscenti. I have a boat with a cockpit that's been painted in Sterling LP. The teak deck gave up the ghost and so I'm replacing it. This project has included some fiberglass / fairing work to portions of the cockpit walls, which leaves a cockpit that's mostly painted with Sterling, and with a bunch of places peppered in that are 80G sanded fairing compound.

I plan to repaint the entire cockpit. Clearly I need to prime the faired areas. What I'm not sure about is what prep I should do for the parts that are still in paint. My current plan is as follows:

• Sand everything with 80G paper.
  Prime everything (including over the existing topcoat) with a couple of coats of high build epoxy.
  Sand with 80G.
  Apply finish primer
  Sand to a 320G finish.
  Roll and tip.

What I don't know is if it's a bad idea to prime over the existing paint vs. priming only the faired areas and then sanding to feather. Please don't tell me to sand all the current topcoat off. That doesn't sound like fun.

One other question: There are a lot of places where there's no way I can apply paint with a roller (long, 1" wide strips between trim boards). I'm thinking I may use a foam brush to dab paint on, and then tip it out with a brush. Is that a good approach? Or would I be better off just brushing it straight on?

Thanks!

-Ben

[tech_support]

What I don't know is if it's a bad idea to prime over the existing paint vs. priming only the faired areas and then sanding to feather.

Your method will work but you need to at least remove the surface of the topcoat. Scratch it real good and make sure all the gloss is gone.

One other question: There are a lot of places where there's no way I can apply paint with a roller (long, 1" wide strips between trim boards). I'm thinking I may use a foam brush to dab paint on, and then tip it out with a brush. Is that a good approach? Or would I be better off just brushing it straight on?

In tight spots i use the brush (same brush you use for tipping) the foam brushes do not work as well with sterling. We use/prefer the corona Europa brush

http://boatbuildercentral.com/proddetai ... =LM_8411_2