Painting deck-re-bedding fittings

[Island_Moose]

Good day,

I want to paint my deck when the weather improves, and I see this as a good opprotunity to re-bed all of my deck fittings.

Here's the question, I want to make sure to paint under my deck fittings, but I don't want to remove all of deck fittings at once. In other words, I would like to lift the fitting, improve the holes with epoxy as per normal, but then paint that 'area' before re-bedding the fitting. Think of it as 'cutting in' with the paint. I'd do one fitting at a time, but not take the boat out of action for weeks.

Then, when the weather is right, I'll paint the entire deck.

Do you think painting the area under and around the fitting first, then painting the rest of the deck up to the fitting will be OK? I don't want the paint edge to peel away in the future.

Does this make sense?

John

[neilpride]

Yes, you are leaving a paint edge , moisture with time get under and start to lift off, but it take a long time , depend what kind of paint you choose, Awlgrip is kind of a tough paint, not sure with other products, in any case dont paint close to the fiting, leave some mm between the fitting and the paint...

[Azul]

I wouldn't bother. I've tried it both ways and the easiest (mind you I used RustOleum Marine Gloss one part enamel) is to stay away from fittings with your roller and large foam brush, it is remarkably easy to paint around the fittings with a small artist brush. You don't even need to tape the fitting off, if you have a steady hand it will look perfect and if you are sloppy it is easy to get a little paint off the fitting with artificial steel wool pads. It is impossible to see the blend line using an artist's brush.

Not to mention it is going to look really bad if you paint under and around the fittings until you go back and paint the deck. Also, be careful using a power sander on your nonskid, or sanding the nonskid excessively unless you plan to take the entire nonskid pattern off. Even if you put several coats of sanded paint over areas of denuded non skid it will be quite apparent due to the difference in texture.

Attached is a photo I found which illustrates this: the slick area is taped off and the nonskid area is being painted with sanded paint to make it nonskid again. After one coat of paint without sand nonskid gets slippery. The bazillion holes in the deck the PO's placed were visible until about the sixth coat.

Another trick is if you don't want your deck too shiny, just paint it when you think it will be sunny without checking a weather report. When it rains an hour after you paint it dulls the finish nicely.