I am having a problem painting the cockpt interior. I am using Interlux brightside paint, a mix of half yellow and half white. I have one coat down. It goes on just fine but is not drying over some beads of caulk. The bead of caulk where the front bulkhead and floor meet and the bead of caulk around the dagger board box and floor are still tacky after 8 days. The paint has dried just fine everywhere else including the caulked seams at the rear bulkhead and along each side and the floor. I am currently using lights with reflectors to raise the temperature in the tacky areas to around 118 F. This seems to help but I should not be needed and makes me concerned about adding the second coat of paint. The caulk seams in question are over a year old so were certainly dry before painting. Any ideas or suggestions?
What are you using for caulk?
The caulk is GE Silicone II XST Paintable formula indoor/outdoor caulk. It is an all weather caulk that doesn't shrink and is water tight. It can't be used below the water line but hopefully the interior of the cockpit will not be below the water line often. I have used it on the trim, on the outside of our house, with great success and for most of the areas I used it on the boat it painted over just fine. For some reason there are two areas of caulk that the paint just doesn't want to dry over. The paint is getting around a year old but is kept in a can with map gas instead of air to keep it from filming over. The paint goes on nice and tips out smooth. Interlux Brightside does take several days to get hard, usually 5 days unless it is really warm, but this has been well over a week and the paint is hard everywhere except over two areas of the caulk?
Well Terry, you've just learned a valuable lesson, which we've all learned (okay most of us) and that is silicone has no place on a boat, except to hold glass in window frames.
Glass is a difficult to stick material and silicone is the best choice, but other wise you should be spanked (let your wife do it, so she can have some enjoyment from your misery) for using silicone in the future.
As for your current problem, it's very likely you'll have to remove the paint in the area of the caulk, yea, I know it sucks, hence the spanking thing I mentioned, (come on, let her have some fun) and prime the area. Of course I've seen primer get pissed about being applied over silicone too, but not at nearly the same rate as top coat.
Good idea about the MAPP gas trick, I use the same one and it works very well. I use a number of gasses (my verbosity is a clue), which ever is handy at the time.
So the problem is the caulk? It works so well on the outside house trim and windows and the areas on the boat that the paint dried seem just fine. I did primer the caulk and surrounding wood before painting. Does it all need to be removed or just the seams where the paint is not drying? I can clean off the caulk though. Just a bit of razor use and some sanding. What should I caulk those seems with? The plans call for caulk to keep water out of the seems. They were glued with an epoxy and wood flour mix. I could make epoxy and filler fillets alone the seems but that seems a bit over kill as the current joints are more then strong enough.
I'm not sure where you are caulking, but I see no need to caulk an epoxy glued joint, unless you don't think you got it perfectly sealed. Silicone is one of those materials that will screw with everything. Even after you razor it off, it will still screw with what ever is placed over it. The only cure I've found for silicone is heavy sanding and nightly prayer.
Your case sounds like you have some sort of contamination, if some areas are okay and other aren't. If this is the case, just clean off the bad spots and try again. Use caulk that doesn't have the word silicone on the label anywhere. Acrylic Bathroom, Tub & Tile caulk is a common el-cheapo substitute for real boat caulk. It can be painted over, it can be sanded and if it's painted, it last fairly long.
The Paintable Silicone caulks for home use are paintable with latex paint. But as Paul just indicated avoid using Silicones on boats except for the possible use to hold Lexan into window frames. Most Marine paint formulas are incompatable with silicones....period. If; however, you paint your craft with Latex House paints or porch and deck polyurethanes you can paint over the paintable silicones. But I would still avoid them and use an acrylic caulk instead if you are going to try using caulks formulated for houses.
You can try your best to remove the caulk only, and if you can get there, you could coat the remainder with an acrylic paintable house caulk, prime over that after it sets up completely and then go ahead and repaint with your marine paint. You will need to actually get into the epoxy beneath the silicone for this to be successful. Then thoroughly clean the area with either Naptha or Acetone. and let it completely dry out before either recoating with epoxy/micro ballons to fair things out or to use plenty of high build primer to bring it up to your finished surface before priming and repainting. All depends upon how high a quality finish you are going for.
Thanks guys. I sand therefore I am. It has been my mantra for the last two years I see no reason to deviate given the circumstance. On the up side I did learn something. I guess it is a good thing there were two contaminated spots and it didn't all dry. I would have painted over the silicone caulk and felt just fine about it.
I am not that concerned about removing the caulk. It is just along the seam where the bottom and stringer come together and where the dagger board box joins the bottom. The plans call for those seams to be caulked to prevent water penetration. The seams are epoxy and wood flour but like many of the Stevenson's plans they were think glue not epoxy.
It's a good idea to learn to enjoy sanding. It can be cathartic with the right amount of beer. The first step is to buy a cell phone so people can call you while you are sanding. When they ask how you're doing, always say "Fine! I'm having a great time with my boat! Now leave me alone! " In time you will come to believe it yourself.
You had me right up until the cell phone thing. I personally hate when phones ring. For most of my life the phone would ring and the caller was having a problem or had a complaint. No one ever called with good news or to say hello. Not answering was never an option. I never worked a Christmas eve or day where within the first 30 minutes someone didn't call and ranked me out in language that would make a drunken sailor sound like a choir boy. That's called police work. People calling with trouble goes with the territory.
Maybe my concerns about cell phones stem from that or maybe they come from the notion that people use them to excess times 10 to the 1000th factorial. I see people driving and chatting, talking while in the grocery line, sitting at tables with others, in the movies, while having sex standing in bathroom stalls, worse while sitting alone in bathroom stalls, you name it. Now there is texting, or as my wife puts it chatting without voice. My sister use to call while driving to work or home from work and my best friend, of 41 years, has started doing likewise. I don't get it. I do have cell phones. Three of them. I carry one, my wife carries one and my mother in law carries the third. We get by on 500 total minutes per month for all three. My monthly average for cell for minutes used is 3.7 minutes per month. My wife and mother in law use a bit more but not much.
To me a cell phone is for last minute changes in schedules, quick invites for lunches or dinners because happenstance has unexpectedly left me in close proximity and I want to grab the advantage. My kid keeps asking for a cell phone. She is 10 and many of her friends have them. When ever I ask the other parents or my daughter why they need one they chime "in case of an emergency". I worked for 22 years as a police officer. I was on call 24/7. Not once in 22 years did they call because of an emergency. I struggle to imagine the lives kids live to day that is so frought with emergencies.
Maybe the problem is people today just don't want to spend time with themselves? I don't know if they don't think past the daily noise and are bothered by blankness if they try? Maybe they are frightened by the insight that comtemplation provides? Perhaps if they spent time sanding, comtemplating the problems we face today, thinking up something nice to do for a friend, family member or even total stranger (that doesn't include calling them to chat) or just zoning out to let the days stress ebb a bit they would come to the realization that cell phone chatting and texting is a form of polution and they would began to limit their use.
My idea of the perfect cell phone would be one about the size of a quarter that sits in your ear and can be used by either voice command or you touching it. You hear through your ear and talk through your ear. No microphone, camera, texting keyboard, internet access or other features. If you were having an emergency or, as mentioned before, an opportunity or someone called and it fell into either of those situations you could just give it a tap or voice command.
Also when you do use your cellphone try and keep the conversation brief and on topic. Unlike this response. ;D I watched the history of the roman empire, on the history channel, last night. They covered 1000 years in 30 minutes with 7 commercial interruptions. I thought they adequately conveyed all there is to know on the subject in the 14 minutes the actual show entailed. Infact they were repetative and overly verbose a couple of times. The point is try and keep your cell phone conversation to 1 or 2 minutes.
Ok now I will put my soapbox away and go back to sanding.