Shelter Island Boat Works

Painting the deck was not as smooth as I expected.

After a final sanding with 220 grit sand paper I first varnished the mahogany rub rails, coaming and some details (8 coats). I always varnish first before painting. It makes it easier to tape and get any paint off the mahogany. Then I taped off the varnished areas and put on two coats of primer. I was going to use Kirby’s paint for the deck, so I used Kirby’s Primer to give it a try. The final color was to be Maynard Bray Off White, the same color and can I used on the interior.

The interior paint job had gone quite smoothly. The paint covered well and flowed nicely. I had added about 20% Penetrol at the time. So I thought the decks would be easy. Not so.

After the primer and first three coats of finish paint went on it looked terrible. The paint was not flowing well, deep brush marks were showing up and overlaps were very pronounced. I rolled and tipped doing about 2 foot sections at a time, working quickly. I used a fine foam nap roller and a very high quality natural bristle brush. I even tried a foam brush to tip at one point. I added more Penetrol on the second coat. That did nothing to help.

I was confounded. What was the problem? I surmised that it may have been too cold as it was November and the ambient temperature inside my heated garage was around 62 degrees. That was as warm as I could get it. I assumed that the paint (Kirby’s is quite think out of the can) was just too thick to flow given the temperature, even with the Penetrol. I even heated the paint to room temperature before applying. That did nothing to help.

So, I decided to wait until spring, and warmer weather, for the final coat. I had another boat to restore, could not sail this one anyway, so it was no big deal.

The photo above shows the deck after the first two finish coats. At the bottom of the photo you can see the rough patches where the paint was clumping and showing deep brush marks. While the photo does not show it, the rest was as bad.

Come spring and with monitoring the temperature, I finally got the shop up to 70 degrees and decided to give it a go. This time I added about 25% Penetrol and did one final coat. It did flow better, not clumping at the overlaps, but it still was showing brush marks while wet. After drying (Kirby’s takes a couple of days to really dry) it was not bad, but there were still fine brush marks. That would have to do.

In conclusion, it seems that Kirby’s paint was not as cooperative as it had been on the interior paint job. Temperature is very critical it seems. It’s reputation is quite strong, but with this experience I found it does not “flow” well unless the temperature, the amount of Penetrol, and application are somehow flawless. While the slight brush marks may be typical of a Kirby’s paint job, I think I will try something else next time.