Opinion on just painting rough surfaces?

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Matt Johnson

Another week or two of fairing our interior and I agree with the idea of doing anything but fairing the fiberglass. It's a hateful task.

sanding inside corners is brutal.

hopefully your hull is already fair though. You’re not actually faring are you? just smoothing, right?

In any case, I have decided it’s not worth sacrificing all those months of my life to sand the interior.

Here’s a little secret. I had a very fair exterior to begin with. I faired the foam before I infused the hull. It looked pretty good taking off the peel ply. Even after all of that, it took two guys an entire year at 40 hours a week to fair the hull. We did it very well. There’s the tiniest layer bog. Every pound counts. But it’s perfectly fair. At least it was before the hurricane damage. It’s still fair but there are some gouges now.

so given that it took them that long, and that I know they were working hard because I was there the entire time working as well, I’m just not willing to sacrifice many months of my life to that on the interior. Screw that. I definitely have better things to do with my life.

[PirateFoxy]

As a theoretical potential buyer, my biggest concern would just be the actual texture to touch - some fiberglass does a really great impression of sandpaper and I wouldn't want to end up with 'grated' knuckles because I had to catch myself on the wall or rolled over in my sleep and whacked the wall with my hand, y'know? Provided it doesn't try to damage you if you touch it, I don't think I'd care overly much as long as it all looked built properly. Like, the finish level of the cabinetry and the joins where cabinet meets fiberglass will have to be really well done to make sure it looks like an Intentional Design Choice instead of "I just couldn't be bothered to finish anything properly" y'know?

As for the color - were in I in your shoes, I think I'd be doing some test patches, and one thing I'd try to see how it ended up looking would be a sheer top coat of metallic - not heavy enough to be blingy, just enough to visually 'play' with the texture since the metallic can confuse the eye a bit. (This is based on personal experience with nail polish, actually - I have little dents in my nails sometimes from psoriasis which look like someone poked my nail lots of times with a pin, and metallic finish polish hides the texture much better than cream or matte. The texture is still there, it's just less eye-catching because the metallic particles already break things up a bit visually?) Like assuming you use white paint, I'd try a very sheer top layer of metallic white or if you want a little more color then a pale silver or pale gold might work.

If you know where you want some cabinets already, I'd do the test spots where the cabinets will be and then just leave it - it'd be a fun 'easter egg' to see the things you tried before settling on the final finish, as a (hypothetical) future owner.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by PirateFoxy

As a theoretical potential buyer, my biggest concern would just be the actual texture to touch - some fiberglass does a really great impression of sandpaper and I wouldn't want to end up with 'grated' knuckles because I had to catch myself on the wall or rolled over in my sleep and whacked the wall with my hand, y'know? Provided it doesn't try to damage you if you touch it, I don't think I'd care overly much as long as it all looked built properly. Like, the finish level of the cabinetry and the joins where cabinet meets fiberglass will have to be really well done to make sure it looks like an Intentional Design Choice instead of "I just couldn't be bothered to finish anything properly" y'know?

As for the color - were in I in your shoes, I think I'd be doing some test patches, and one thing I'd try to see how it ended up looking would be a sheer top coat of metallic - not heavy enough to be blingy, just enough to visually 'play' with the texture since the metallic can confuse the eye a bit. (This is based on personal experience with nail polish, actually - I have little dents in my nails sometimes from psoriasis which look like someone poked my nail lots of times with a pin, and metallic finish polish hides the texture much better than cream or matte. The texture is still there, it's just less eye-catching because the metallic particles already break things up a bit visually?) Like assuming you use white paint, I'd try a very sheer top layer of metallic white or if you want a little more color then a pale silver or pale gold might work.

If you know where you want some cabinets already, I'd do the test spots where the cabinets will be and then just leave it - it'd be a fun 'easter egg' to see the things you tried before settling on the final finish, as a (hypothetical) future owner.

thank you! Now that’s a great answer!

You also seem to understand exactly what I’m talking about with the level of the rest of the fit and finish.

i’ll definitely have to test out the roughness. Peel ply does leave a little bit of a texture where there are some sandpaper type qualities. I hadn’t even thought about that. The idea is that the texture is there so you can bond to it more easily. But it’s also rough if you were to slide down it. it doesn’t have fish hooks, it’s not going to cut you, but certainly if like you said, you fell and went sliding down it with your elbow, it would skin your elbow. maybe the paint can take up some of that texture. I’m hoping. It’s very small. Something like 100 grit sandpaper.

Certainly, I will give the small bit of metallic a try. That’s a really interesting idea. I’ve never considered that. That might actually look really nice. Even on a perfectly finished wall, that would be an interesting choice in paint.

I’m kind of excited to try this one.

[s/v Jedi]

I think the finish left from the peel ply is perfect for painting. You don’t want a finish like the outer hull no matter how fair and shiny that is… makes it look cheap and bath tub like.

We are replacing a lot of vinyl covered panels, I can’t recommend those. The reason they lasted decades is how expensive the vinyl was (UltraLeather). Some of it was stitched to fit parts like partial bulkheads and I couldn’t get myself to rip it off, so instead I sprayed it with the cans sold at the auto parts stores for car seats. Works great and it looks like leather again.

I would love to veneer the bulkheads but I’m intimidated by the complexity of that, so I’ll probably paint first.