Boat paint.

[Gerry underwood]

We are going to be changing the colour scheme on our widebeam come spring time. It  is all metal construction.

Is there a special paint that people use??

[Tony Brooks]

10 minutes ago, Gerry underwood said:

We are going to be changing the colour scheme on our widebeam come spring time. It  is all metal construction.

Is there a special paint that people use??

Some use so called "marine" oil based paints, some use two pack paints and some use "professional" gloss paints from major paint companies. having tried several of the marine oil based paints sold to the inland market I used and liked ordinary Johnsons professional oil based gloss that can be mixed to any RAL or BS colour. It seemed to go on easily, covered well and gave a good finish. I think one other here may also use the same point.  You cab get self colour undercoat in that as well which seems to make the job easier.

Edited November 27, 2019 by Tony Brooks

[LadyG]

Absolutely.

But I went to coating specialist Rawlins Paints, and followed their advice.

Results are excellent.

In my opinion, the purpose of any coating is primarily to stop corrosion, and the decorative aspects are secondary, but still important.

 

Edited November 27, 2019 by LadyG

[blackrose]

If we're talking single pack paint which is what most of us use then avoid cheap household gloss paints as they don't flex enough for application to external steel. The better quality oil based paints like Dulux Weathershield or the sadly discontinued International 10 Year Gloss work well, as do other brands like those described above.

 

Although the quality of the paint is important, it's not as important as the quality of the preparation and painting over a good quality undercoat/primer on the areas taken back. I recommend Blake's/Hemple Primer/Undercoat for single pack topcoats.

 

For areas where you're going back to bare metal you should paint on a couple of coats of good quality metal primer followed by two coats of the undercoat (or primer/undercoat) and then as many topcoats as you want. Never paint topcoats straight onto primer. Whether you sand between coats depends on your level of perfection and also on maximum overcoating times. The basic rule of thumb is that any single pack paint that's left for more than 3 days will need to be keyed before the next coat goes on for good adhesion. If you can get your subsequent coats on quicker then you won't need to key unless you want a better finish, because the interlayer bond between the fresh coats of paint will be molecular. Interlayer bonding is particularly important between layers of different paints like undercoat and topcoat for example. 

 

If you're using two pack paints then it's a whole different kettle of johnnies.

Edited November 27, 2019 by blackrose

[Beetlejuice]

+ 1 Johnsons it is good paint...