Coat of bottom jobhello

[Mplight]

That’s a ridiculous price- some elbow grease and correct tools! Def a DIY

5k should include soda blast, barrier coating and antifouling!

[Quadrille in JB]

Riverside Marine in Ft Pierce is a very affordable family owned and operated business for the past 40 years. I’ve had my boats in and out of there for 17 years. All of it DIY.
Call 772-464-5720 and ask for Sally..
Last year I paid an hourly worker $120 to sand the bottom of my 34’ O’day in 6 hours. He was a working machine. I then applied 1 1/2 coats of petit 60% copper ablative in about 6 hours. Use a 1/8” nap red roller made for resin application to get good smooth finish. It took 1.5 gallons of paint.
Tell them that Bill sent you.

[ramblinrod]

Originally Posted by philiosophy

A Captain that does as much of his own work as possible is far more in tune with his boat.

However, if not adequately knowledgeable, skilled, and experienced, may have the most unsound vessel on the water, and not realize it. ;-)

I have customers that range from almost totally DIY and call for help only when completely stumped, to others that say, "Here's the keys, do whatever it takes to keep her top notch."

Neither is wrong; just have different priorities and sensibilities.

That said, I believe every skipper should have the resources on board to make any possible emergency repair at sea, at least safe enough to make it back to port (where they should perhaps have a pro inspect it, even if it seems right).

The skipper themselves may be totally inept with tools, and may rely completely on a crew member. That's fine too, as long as they are very careful to ensure the crew member DOES actually know what they are doing.

The truth is,

No boater knows what they don't know until they learn so.

And, even if you've been doing it one way for 50 years and it hasn't sunk yet, don't be too sure of yourself, there's always tomorrow. ;-)

[ramblinrod]

Originally Posted by seanicroute

Hello,

We are willing to do DIY but have never done this kind of work before.

Thanks

I concur that you should shop around if possible, but this is one of those jobs many do the first time, and never again.

Hot, dirty, back-breaking, arm wrenching, tool busting, all combined with hazardous materials exposure. If you have lots of time, and no money, DIY may be your only choice. But if you have it in your budget to hire this out, you may want to think about.

If you do go the DIY route, pay close attention to the personal protection equipment recommendations in the Material Safety Data Sheets of the chemicals you choose.

The DIY guys you see sometimes coming out of the yard with bright white eyes, but look like Papa Smurf, may not have long to enjoy that boat they just sanded and painted.

[DenverSailors]

Get Don Casey’s books and a cooler of beer. I was terrified by this prospect the first time, but it’s more pure labor than something to fear.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by ramblinrod

I concur that you should shop around if possible, but this is one of those jobs many do the first time, and never again.

Hot, dirty, back-breaking, arm wrenching, tool busting, all combined with hazardous materials exposure. If you have lots of time, and no money, DIY may be your only choice. But if you have it in your budget to hire this out, you may want to think about.

If you do go the DIY route, pay close attention to the personal protection equipment recommendations in the Material Safety Data Sheets of the chemicals you choose.

The DIY guys you see sometimes coming out of the yard with bright white eyes, but look like Papa Smurf, may not have long to enjoy that boat they just sanded and painted.

Actually doing a bottom job is one of the simplest paint jobs I've ever done.

It is hard work, but you can space it out. (And) If you are over say 60, you probably should do the work yourself for the exercise alone if you are still in decent shape

Getting your mask positioning right though if you wear glasses can be a challenge. On my second bottom job, I was back in glasses and my cheap mask kept fogging them up

The good thing about doing the job yourself is that you will be doing a really close inspection of your hull sort of like when you wash your car with a cloth and see every ding and scratch (for those that still remember washing their cars)

[Quadrille in JB]

Use a good random action sander connected to a strong shop vacuum and you’ll never see any dust. Our local marinas require this. Get a shop bag with big replaceable bags to trap the paint dust.
The 5” and 6” Dewalt sanders have worked well for me with a Stanley stainless steel shop vac from Walmart.
Bill

[Dave9111]

The quote is nonsense obviously. If you can, get your boat out of that marina!

Up north here, we bottom paint EVERY YEAR. If we had to lay out $5K for a 46 ft boat every year, the marina would have a lot more available slips!

You aren't applying high gloss car paint, this is bottom paint to keep the crap from growing on your boat. Ablative paint comes off with a pressure washer. Want to get rid of your existing ablative paint - get a pressure washer and go to town! No sanding required. Use a 6" orbital sander on a 46 ft boat !?!? Why not a Dremel tool with a sanding disk? Come on, this is not a car refinish. Wash the bottom with a pressure washer and remove what paint you want. Sand with drywall mesh sandpaper on a pole to remove bumps and blemishes. (Home Depot has drywall sanding supplies) Touch up with a hand sander or a orbital (You can get vacuum attachments that do this as well) THINK DRYWALL SANDING (Think of your boat bottom as your living room ceiling) Rinse with a pressure washer to get dust off. Use a paint roller on a stick and paint the bottom of the boat. Regarding paint, Micron is some of the most expensive stuff you can buy, if not the most expensive. Read the paint reviews! I have had really good luck with Blue Water Marine ablative paint. Remember, this stuff wears off and comes off with a pressure washer! How much do you want to pay??
http://www.bottompaintstore.com/imag...ide%282%29.pdf

I use the Blue Water copper shield paint and apply one new coat in the spring after having about a coat blasted off when the boat is pulled out in the fall. I can get it for about $100/gallon online.

https://www.thehulltruth.com/boating...mendation.html

Practical Sailor or some other magazine turned me on to Blue Water paints and they do work well and are a lot cheaper.

I have a 33 ft sailboat. A 46 ft boat might have double the bottom surface, probably a little less. I use just over 1 gallon per coat. So you likely need about 2 gallons per coat, or about $200 per coat. $400 for two coats... etc I live 2 hours from my marina. I can leave in the morning, wash the boat bottom down to remove winter residue/dirt, sand, rinse, allow to dry. Apply 1 coat on paint, then go over the leading edge of the bow and keel with a second coat, cleanup, and drive home in one day.
Now it might take you two days to do your boat since its larger. However, if you paid someone $100 per hour - two days would be $1600, paint would be say $450 for two coats, sanding mesh $15, rollers $10. I get about $2100 if you pay a $100/hr labor rate (high!). Most painters would be very happy getting $50/hr. The drywall mesh sandpaper is waterproof. There is no reason why you cannot sand the bottom wet. Keep the hose nearby and dip the sanding pad and pole in a bucket of water. No dust!

[thomm225]

Micron CSC Ablative is expensive, but this will be my 4th year since I painted the bottom last and had the boat pulled.

Looking at it like this, it's cheaper than using a lower costing paint every year......

I usually apply a coat and 1/2 and it takes 5 quarts. (a gallon plus one quart) which is just over $300.00 for my 27' full keel sailboat

[Suijin]

Originally Posted by seanicroute

1200 - Sanding
360 - Running Gear Prep/Paint
1900 - Paint (Micron csc)
1100 - Labor for paint
150 - RR owner supplied zincs
100 - Remove Debris

This is absurd pricing. At $100/hr they're charging you for 26 hours of labor and raping you on the materials. An hour and a half to change zincs? That's nuts.

This job would take me 2-3 days, at the most. And that's factoring in "waiting for paint to dry" time. Here's a rough breakdown:

Sand bottom - Three hours (light scuffing with orbital)
Prep running gear - two hours
Wash and tape waterline - 1 hour
Paint, two coats plus 3rd at waterline and leading edges - 4 hours
Running gear - 1 hour
Change zincs - 30 minutes
Paint @ $250/gal - $750
Rollers, suit, chip brushes etc. $30
Misc time - 3 hours

Granted, this is based on knowing what to do and how to do it, but it's not rocket science and every boat owner living on a budget should know how to do this work as they face it ever few years. It's money in your pocket to DIY.

[Dave9111]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Micron CSC Ablative is expensive, but this will be my 4th year since I painted the bottom last and had the boat pulled.

Looking at it like this, it's cheaper than using a lower costing paint every year......

I usually apply a coat and 1/2 and it takes 5 quarts. (a gallon plus one quart) which is just over $300.00 for my 27' full keel sailboat

__________________________________________________ _________

You are assuming that other paint does not last as long as Micron CSC.
None of the real world tests I have read support your assumption.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Dave9111

__________________________________________________ _________

You are assuming that other paint does not last as long as Micron CSC.
None of the real world tests I have read support your assumption.

Not necessarily, I was just comparing how I do it with the more expensive paint compared to how you do it with a cheaper priced paint and the time between bottom jobs

Everyone has their own way

I go a while longer because of my boat. The fiberglass is so thick on most of it that even if there are problems from the paint coming off I'll just scrape/sand off a few layers of fiberglass and repaint like I did last time.

Several layers of fiberglass had peeled off the bottom of the keel from possibly hitting bottom or the fact that for a year of so the boat was at a marina where it sat in the mud during low tide so much so that when you hopped aboard it didn't move

[Dave9111]

>>Not necessarily, I was just comparing how I do it with the more expensive paint compared to how you do it with a cheaper priced paint and the time between bottom jobs

Everyone has their own way<<


Not necessarily?? How so?

Perhaps you could get 5 years out of brand X paint?

I suggest that you do NOT get what you pay for when buying bottom paint. I have proof of that as I was paying near $150 per gallon for inferior West Marine bottom paint some years ago. That was a ripoff.

If you are happy with Micron CSC, that's fine. But you don't have any proof that Micron CSC is any better than anything else. If you do some reading you will find that a LOT of people have abandoned Micron paints, especially their ablatives, for less expensive paints and have gotten as good, if not better results.

I suggest you read Practical Sailors April 2017 bottom paint test results. Micron CSC is mentioned and that is about it. For a paint that cost $210+ per gallon, you would think it would be a stand out. Its not!

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Dave9111

>>Not necessarily, I was just comparing how I do it with the more expensive paint compared to how you do it with a cheaper priced paint and the time between bottom jobs

Everyone has their own way<<


Not necessarily?? How so?

Perhaps you could get 5 years out of brand X paint?

I suggest that you do NOT get what you pay for when buying bottom paint. I have proof of that as I was paying near $150 per gallon for inferior West Marine bottom paint some years ago. That was a ripoff.

If you are happy with Micron CSC, that's fine. But you don't have any proof that Micron CSC is any better than anything else. If you do some reading you will find that a LOT of people have abandoned Micron paints, especially their ablatives, for less expensive paints and have gotten as good, if not better results.

I suggest you read Practical Sailors April 2017 bottom paint test results. Micron CSC is mentioned and that is about it. For a paint that cost $210+ per gallon, you would think it would be a stand out. Its not!

I'm not saying it's better, I'm just explaining my method.

The yard where I found my boat on the hard and later purchased insisted I buy all paint from them.

They happened to have Micron CSC Ablative so I went with that.

This particular boatyard is like 8 miles from a town of 1400. It's quite small with few supplies.

I paid $2,000 for the boat so wasn't worried about what I spent on the paint. That was in 2011.

I redid the bottom in 2014/15 (Winter) and ended up using the same brand of paint.

I haven't researched paints. It's not that big of a deal to me. This is actually the first boat out of the 12 or so that I've owned where I ever had to paint the bottom.

So, I've spent about $600.00 on bottom paint over the last 7 years. It's not something I lose sleep over

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by Dave9111

The quote is nonsense obviously. If you can, get your boat out of that marina!

Up north here, we bottom paint EVERY YEAR. If we had to lay out $5K for a 46 ft boat every year, the marina would have a lot more available slips!

You aren't applying high gloss car paint, this is bottom paint to keep the crap from growing on your boat. Ablative paint comes off with a pressure washer. Want to get rid of your existing ablative paint - get a pressure washer and go to town! No sanding required. Use a 6" orbital sander on a 46 ft boat !?!? Why not a Dremel tool with a sanding disk? Come on, this is not a car refinish. Wash the bottom with a pressure washer and remove what paint you want. Sand with drywall mesh sandpaper on a pole to remove bumps and blemishes. (Home Depot has drywall sanding supplies) Touch up with a hand sander or a orbital (You can get vacuum attachments that do this as well) THINK DRYWALL SANDING (Think of your boat bottom as your living room ceiling) Rinse with a pressure washer to get dust off. Use a paint roller on a stick and paint the bottom of the boat. Regarding paint, Micron is some of the most expensive stuff you can buy, if not the most expensive. Read the paint reviews! I have had really good luck with Blue Water Marine ablative paint. Remember, this stuff wears off and comes off with a pressure washer! How much do you want to pay??
http://www.bottompaintstore.com/imag...ide%282%29.pdf

I use the Blue Water copper shield paint and apply one new coat in the spring after having about a coat blasted off when the boat is pulled out in the fall. I can get it for about $100/gallon online.

https://www.thehulltruth.com/boating...mendation.html

Practical Sailor or some other magazine turned me on to Blue Water paints and they do work well and are a lot cheaper.

I have a 33 ft sailboat. A 46 ft boat might have double the bottom surface, probably a little less. I use just over 1 gallon per coat. So you likely need about 2 gallons per coat, or about $200 per coat. $400 for two coats... etc I live 2 hours from my marina. I can leave in the morning, wash the boat bottom down to remove winter residue/dirt, sand, rinse, allow to dry. Apply 1 coat on paint, then go over the leading edge of the bow and keel with a second coat, cleanup, and drive home in one day.
Now it might take you two days to do your boat since its larger. However, if you paid someone $100 per hour - two days would be $1600, paint would be say $450 for two coats, sanding mesh $15, rollers $10. I get about $2100 if you pay a $100/hr labor rate (high!). Most painters would be very happy getting $50/hr. The drywall mesh sandpaper is waterproof. There is no reason why you cannot sand the bottom wet. Keep the hose nearby and dip the sanding pad and pole in a bucket of water. No dust!

A very sensible post. I was wondering when a pressure washer was going to come up. And applying bottom paint isn't rocket science.