Shelter Island Boat Works

Painting the hull is always a treat. After filling the many holes, fairing, and sanding it smooth the finish coat of paint evens everything out. It always looks like it is ready to splash. But there is a long way to go!

Because the hull is plywood I always like to put a couple of coats of epoxy on it, inside and out. It is the plywood end grain that is the most concern. While the primer and paint are good coatings, a few dings to the edges of the planks or keel and delamination is inevitable. That would spell disaster. It does add weight but it is well worth it for longevity.

I masked off the shear strake as I will need to refine the profile after the hull gets turn over.

Two coats of liquid epoxy.

After filling a few missed holes and sanding the epoxy coating smooth it was ready for primer. In the past I used Interlux Brightside paint. It always flowed and leveled beautifully. However, it seems that Awlgrip bought Interlux and discontinued Brightside, as it competed with one of their brands. So I thought I would try an Epifanes polyurethane two part paint this time. I should be harder and apparently flows quite well. There is a two part polyurethane primer that is compatible.

Two coats of two part Epifanes primer.

Three coats of Epifanes two part polyurethane paint

VERY glossy.

The Epifanes is certainly VERY glossy, but even with the roll and tip method it wasn’t as smooth as Brightside. It did flow quite nicely, but there were some minor ripples and because of the extreme gloss, even the smallest dust particles showed. All in all, it was fine and as I sanded between coats I found that it was MUCH harder the the Brightside – a big plus.

Then it was on to the bottom paint. I used a laser level to mark the waterline (taken off Hylan’s plans) and masked it off. Because of the lapstrake planks there are returns at the edges of each plank, so that when the hull is seen looking directly at the waterline it appears to be a continuous line. Seen from an angle it is jig-jogged.

Jig-jogged waterline masking.

Two coats of Micron green bottom paint

As I left the masking tape on the shear strake when I epoxied and painted, I needed to use a matt knife to cut away the tape and accumulated epoxy on the underside. This photo shows it before that operation.

Now it is on to the bottom rub rails and rudder strap. The transom will get it’s varnish at a later date as I have to trim the curve at the deck edge.