Flaking Paint

[smilingbobby]

New Member!
78 CAL 29. Just bought. Boat sat for 6 yrs. The cabin has flaking paint all over the interior hull. After sanding what should I do and what paint should I use..

[Ex-Calif]

Sand, degrease, sand, degrease...

(Did I mention degrease?)

Then single part "poly"-urethane slightly thinned depending on temperature then rollered or brushed on.

Preparation is the single most important factor. Water should not bead up anywhere on any surface that is to be painted.

If you are looking for a "perfect" finish you should consider a full two-part polyurethane and depending on the subsurface a primer coat.

[PAR]

I'll add that you need to scuff up the under lying surfaces to a fair degree so paint can have some "tooth" to grab onto. The surfaces as mentioned, must be clean. Clean isn't a wipe with a 409 soaked paper towel. That's just a wipe with a soapy towel. Clean is a scrub with a brush and some soap (like 409), then a heavy rinse with fresh water, then dry with a paper towel. A good grit to scuff up the surface would be 120. Most good quality paints can fill this. 150 to 220 if you're real anal about the finish.

[Ex-Calif]

Good points PAR. We keyed the surface with 220 for our cockpit job a few months ago.Also I would recommend a final wipe with thinner before paint.

To give you an idea of prep to paint ratio - We prepped for two days and painted 2 coats in 3 hours.

Wear surgeon's gloves to avoid sticking a "greasy" hand-print while in painting mode.

[Wotname]

Hmm... I like to take a slightly different approach with the de-greasing aspect.

Get rid of the "grease" early in the preparation process either by using solvents or warm water / soap etc. When you get to the final sanding stages, keep your finger tips OFF the surface. Don't feel for smoothness by using your finger tips, look for it using your eyes.

Remove the dust etc with a good vacumn cleaner (with a clean brush) and then paint. For a really top finish, vacumn at least twice with a few hours minimum between cleaning to collect the dust that settles from the air after the first cleaning.

Doing a solvent wipe down just before painting usually introduces more contaminates than it removes IME - mainly because one doesn't use enough solvent or replace the paper or cloth wipes after every wipe or so and therefore ends spreading whatever contamination there is, all over the job.