my vacationer is under construction and i have been wondering if i should forget about painting it and aply some kind of epoxy paint instead. the guys at raka say i can aply pigment to it and have "about" the same affect as paint..... about? has anyone here done this? how does it look? will it crack up while in use? is it the kind of stuff that would last a long time? i must know. i like the idea using more epoxy to smooth the boat than bondo. my weekender worked well with bondo but i wonder if epoxy isn't better.
i just remembered another question... will epoxy mixed with pigment require a protective coating from the sun/uv??
Ahoy Aaron,
My understanding is that epoxy needs to be protected from sunlight. Otherwise, the epoxy will deteriorate. Adding pigment to epoxy might help covering the surface later with a lighter color of paint, but that's about all. Maybe in a bilge or some other dark recess, epoxy with an additive pigment would be useful as well.
Personally, I would limit epoxy to fiberglassing the surface and achieving a smooth finish, and then covering that finish with a primer and a good paint. We did coat our stem and stern with epoxy and then, applied multiple coats of varnish over the epoxied surface.
System 3, I believe, has an excellent manual you can download. I would recommend the manual to anyone thinking of using epoxy in boat building.
Like Jim said, epoxy must be protected from sunlight and a pigment in the mix won't do it. Get yourself some GOOD boat primer and paint and she'll shine for you
Keith
Hey Aaron, I have heard that adding pigment or things like graphite to your epoxy will give it the sun resistance needed. I know of a person in Ohio who has very successfully coated his boat with epoxy and graphite. He was persuasive enough that I did the same to my Little Gem and the epoxy graphite mix held up quite well. Problems were that I couldn't get a nice smooth finish with the epoxy and if I did manage to put in a scrape (harder than paint) it wasn't that easy to go back and touch up. Ed Jones, in Georgia, tried epoxy and graphite but for some reason it turned pasty white when it touched the southern waters.
I ended up sanding the epoxy and graphite finish smooth and have painted it. Not quite as abrasion resistant but it is very shiny and smooth. Plus it is very easy to touch up any dings or scrapes. As far as paint goes, I have used several different types over the years on the boats I have built and am currently a huge fan of Innerlux boatpaint with teflon. It is expensive but fewer coats are needed for a nice finish. Better yet, it is self leveling which means brush strokes vanish leaving a smooth finish. It is much more abrasion resistant than anything else and cleans up easily. Given how much sanding a prep you do to your boat don't waste it by painting with anything else. It will end up costing you more in the long run. Here are my experiences with other paint:
Latex paint: Pros: inexpensive, short time to recoat, and you can easily clean up after painting. Cons: never cures as hard as oil-based (easily scratched), retains brush strokes, and I have had several times where it didn't adhere well. Don't use primer, just paint directly onto the fiberclassing after a real good scrubbing.
Oil based paint: dries harder than latex and has some self-levelling ability. Cons: longer recoat time and a pain to clean out of brushes.
Again, it seems like topside boat paint last longer, is more abrasion resistant, and cleans up easier that non-boat paint. Initially expensive, it has proven cheaper in the long run. Kinda like fiberglassing is initially expensive but extends the life of all of your hard work.
thanx so much for all the great advise! it makes me wish i had asked for help when building my weekender. clearly i have much to think about.
scott- did you have to use bondo before painting or did you just sand the epoxy smooth?
If you add enough reinforcement to epoxy you can skip painting, but the surface will "chalk" out in time, which will require buffing or paint to "brighten" it up. In the end, you add so much reinforcement (there are a number of different materials that will protect from UV) that you'll have as much material in the epoxy as resin, which seems wasteful to me.
Racers, who can afford to regularly buff, heavily reinforced epoxy (graphite, aluminum oxide, Teflon, etc.) don't have issue with it's durability, they just buff until they need more goo. The fraction of a knot in additional boat speed it provides, justifies the cost. On a cruising gaffer, you're not going to buff it, polish it to a high luster every Saturday morning before an outing, like the racer, so it will get chalky pretty quick and need painting.
If you've done a good job with you epoxy work, you don't need a primer, if using a real epoxy paint. Real epoxy paints will be two part and not have the word "alkyd" anywhere in the description of the paint. Many "epoxy" paints are just modified alkyds, using "epoxy" as a catch phrase to lure customers.
You'll have trouble finding fault with the "oils" (alkyds) other then drying time. Generations of use have proven their worth.
Acrylics (latex) have a place for the budget minded, but I'd caution against below the LWL use of these products. Kitchen and bath or porch and deck versions as well as exterior house paint will be the toughest. Acrylic flat and semi gloss (satin) will absorb moisture (especially flat), so if you want flat paint (which hides imperfections best) paint with a high gloss first, then finish with a flat.
The polys (single and two part) and the epoxy variants are the most costly and longest in durability (figures, right), but can also be difficult to apply well and require special thinners and other agents.
Bondo is real easy to use and sands great but it is porous and doesn't stick well to epoxy over time. At least this has been my experience. I prefer thickened epoxy though I am cheap enough to use sawdust from my sander as thickening agent. Thickened eposy is tough stuff so you need a good random-orbit sander and willingness to rotate sanding disks. The extra time and difficulty is worth it because you will end up with a nice tough surface for which the paint only serves as sunscreen rather than having to be a water barrier as well.
A little extra time with a sander and a little extra money spent on paint will save you a lot of sanding and refilling during the life of your boat. More time sailing.
Several years ago, when I repainted my Luger, I used a Sherwin-Williams urethane as my topcoat. Rolled on about 2ft. at a time & smoothed it with a foam brush. Extremely tough when cured but has enough "give" not to crack under load. In 2001 it was about $250 for a five-gallon kit (it's two-part). I planned on using it on my Vacationer when I get her built. I used Epoxy for the primer and hit it with some 200-grit before the urethane.
Brett
one hint/tip/trick to getting a nice smooth epoxy finish is to use peel ply on top of the cloth as you wet it out. it will come off a smooth as a babys bottom and virtually no work after if done right.
A smoother finish can be had with Visqueen, that clear plastic they sell for painter's drop cloths at the hardware store. It's polyethylene and epoxy doesn't stick to it. Place it over the goo'd up surface and using a smooth roller (rubber) or squeegee, press it in contact with the goo. It will prevent blush from forming on the surface and leave the surface literally glass smooth. This assumes you didn't have roller or squeegee marks, didn't have any folds, wrinkles or other blemishes in the Visqueen or dirt in the goo. Lightly kissed with 320 or finer grit, you can varnish right over this and have a mirror finish.