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Can someone point me to a good thread or provide detailed description of good hand painting the exterior of a steel narrowboat [above water], not sprayed.

 

Preparation procedure including removing minor rust spots

Primer and or undercoat recommended

Topcoat recommended

Types of brush or roller

 

Rod

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Best preparation is sand blasting, removes all rust ;)

3 primer, 3 undercoat, 3 topcoat.

Ours is being done in Epifanes poly urethane two pack.

 

https://www.epifanes.nl/uk/the-epifanes-range-of-paints-amp-varnishes/yachting/paints/epifanes-poly-urethane-jachtlak-(kleuren)-82

Edited by Loddon
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45 minutes ago, rodlloyd said:

Can someone point me to a good thread or provide detailed description of good hand painting the exterior of a steel narrowboat [above water], not sprayed.

 

Preparation procedure including removing minor rust spots

Primer and or undercoat recommended

Topcoat recommended

Types of brush or roller

 

Rod

It depends on whether you want a beautiful finish, or a paint job that is durable and protective (so functional) but far from surface blemish free.

 

Added - If you intend painting outside (as many of us do) ie not in a controlled environment, then you will not get a defect free surface, it will have marks from insects, dust, leaves etc. So better if you don’t use an expensive high gloss paint as it makes defects more obvious.

Edited by Chewbacka
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4 hours ago, matty40s said:

https://www.johnbarnard.biz/tips-tricks-videos/

 

You could do worse than watch a few of these.

I've already watched all of them so clicked this thread to post them, but seems like I've been beaten to it!

 

(mostly just replying to this thread to get notifications, since I'll be looking at doing this to my boat in the spring ? )

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I have always painted my boats by hand. Our narrow boats were painted using Dulux coach enamel mixed for handainting by the local motor factors Brown Bro’s to our specific colour. Good preparation is essential of course with a suitable undercoat to help enhance the top coat. Our barge was big enough to use rollers mostly 4” ones from screwfix and always the best quality brush’s you can get. The roof being very large I mixed some owtrol in to stop the leading edge drying to soon. I used a marine enamel when in Belgium from a company called Levis part of the group that now own dulux and the most popular amongst the commercials. This brand was not available in France so I used to take paint over which I brought from a company called paints 4 trade who supply branded and their own marine paints.

Recently I have used some gloss by rust oleum on my metal garage doors which has given a good glossy finish and was easy to apply.

The main factor in success is the weather and location because just as you finish the local waterway idiots come and strim the bank.

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13 minutes ago, Dav and Pen said:

.............always the best quality brush’s you can get.

 

I am in the process of painting my boat and purchased some expensive 'best in the business' brushes and rollers from the paint supplier as they recommended them (well they would !!) as being suitable for the paint I'm using.

 

EVERY brush has moulted, every stroke results in at least one 'hair' left in the paint. In frustration I walked over to 'Home Bargains' and purchased an assortment of brushes at various prices, including a set of 5 (1/2", 1", 1 1/2", 2", 2 1/2") for 99p (for the set)

 

The 99p (for 5) turned out to be the absolute 'dogs bo***x' and have never dropped a 'hair'. Have been back and bought another half-dozen sets, its cheaper than buying brush cleaner / thinners - just throw them away.

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I used chlorinated rubber [rustoleum combi], the main problem is that the tins do not always seal, so, I use 1 litre tins if available. 

I bought my rollers from EAST COAST SALES, 

3 m tape

universal thinners

tack cloth

wet and dry

 

Edited by LadyG
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15 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I am in the process of painting my boat and purchased some expensive 'best in the business' brushes and rollers from the paint supplier as they recommended them (well they would !!) as being suitable for the paint I'm using.

 

EVERY brush has moulted, every stroke results in at least one 'hair' left in the paint. In frustration I walked over to 'Home Bargains' and purchased an assortment of brushes at various prices, including a set of 5 (1/2", 1", 1 1/2", 2", 2 1/2") for 99p (for the set)

 

The 99p (for 5) turned out to be the absolute 'dogs bo***x' and have never dropped a 'hair'. Have been back and bought another half-dozen sets, its cheaper than buying brush cleaner / thinners - just throw them away.

Lucky old you, I brought a Harris angled brush which shed hairs from the first stroke. Complained to Harris who said that Particular brush wasn’t made to the same standard as their other brushes. They sent another one however which was ok. One of the problems I have found with the cheap sets is that the bristles are often shorter than branded ones. 
I started my painting on the superstructures of Tankers which were white with a brown cutting in bottom band, all done by hand with international paint. No rollers except on the hull when we were alongside a suitable jetty and then with the roller on the end of a very long bamboo pole you proceedEd to put some black stuff on the ship and a hell of a lot on yourself.

on one ship the mate took great pleasure in having us paint white with the sun behind so difficult to see where you had been. He then inspected it later and his favourite saying was “theirs more holidays in this than a Chinese f.... calendar do it again”

Hard apprenticeship on Joe Shell in the 50’s
 

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I've always painted boats by hand. Getting a good finish can be hard (nearly always) but sometimes impossible, if its a hot day the paint dries as you apply it and it is just a mess. Over the last couple of years I have found that applying the paint with a roller and then with a good brush laying it off lightly seems to work quite well. Its quite hard work though as you have to work quite fast and concentrate. Its best to transfer the paint from the tin to a small container (cut the bottom off plastic bottles) and paint from that, if you paint straight from the tin it tends to thicken as the hours pass, use small quantities and thin if you need to. Don't use the roller too fast, it can pull the paint into bubbles and things. We all have our own ways to do things and some people just seem to slap it on and get an OK finish but they use witchcraft or something.

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7 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I am in the process of painting my boat and purchased some expensive 'best in the business' brushes and rollers from the paint supplier as they recommended them (well they would !!) as being suitable for the paint I'm using.

If they weren't Purdy then they weren't the best in the business :)

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When JennyB needed a repaint I did as below but I had had all the windows out, sorted the rust below the frames and repainted locally perhaps 5 years before. I also, rather stupidly, allowed the "professionals" who did a shoddy repaint some 15 years previously to talk me into having the boat sign written instead of vinyl. The sign paint was so soft a lot had polished way. The whole job was done outside.

 

If the boat is sign written you really need to go back to bare metal because otherwise however carefully you rub down the old signwriting is likely to "shadow" through the new paint. Over the years I have tried several so called marine paints at various price points with various success or not but based on some experience I decided to use Johnstons Trade Gloss mixed to RAL colours  I wanted.

 

The painted coach lining was in fair condition apart from the red so I masked up, rubbed down the red, degreased with panel wipe from a car body shop supplier and applied two coats of gloss red 1 day apart. No point in an undercoat because the red had only faded. The next morning when the paint as dry I pulled the tape off and using a soft cloth soaked in white spirit removed such paint that had crept under the masking tape.

 

Allowed a week to dry and masked up for the yellow coach line ditto above.

 

The bulk of the cabin side was then ready for work. The hardest part was rubbing down the sign      writing so the sign paint was removed and the underlying gloss was feathered sufficiently to minimise shadowing without going back to areas of bare metal. Careful use of stroking finger tips helps identify insufficiently feathered areas. This was all done by hand

 

All the rust patches were rubbed down by hand and the bare patches feathered. The patches were degreased and coated with Vactan. The whole cabin side was rubbed down by electric random orbital sander and then by hand taking great care not to flat the coach lines. Wash over with sugar soap and the clean water to remove all traces of dust and then degrease.  Locally prime the Vactand areas and when dry carefully feather them.

 

Mask up the coach lines rubbing down well and then de-dust the whole cabin side with damp microfibre cloth (or tack rag) and degrease. Then paint two self coloured undercoats and two coats of gloss. lightly flatting down each coat. I used a 4" gloss roller and a 3" brush to lay off and work around the window frames. Because by 9.30 am the temperature was too high allow the brush marks to flow out I got up at 5.00 am to leather off the roof and cabin side (roof so water could not run down the cabin side), then microfibre cloth and start paining by 7.00 am to complete that side by about 9.00 am. Then do something else all day.

 

24 hours after the last coat took off the masking tape but because the process takes longer than coach lines some of the bleed would not come off with white spirit so taking extreme care use cellulose thinners.

 

Finally touch in the odd area of coach line that pulled off with the low tack masking tape and after a couple of weeks apply vinyl name.

 

I used yellow Fog tape for masking. The brushes were the top priced "no loss" brush from Toolstation. The professionals will probably throw their hands up in horror but it worked for me as sown below.newcol.JPG.0fbfff9f0463814728426993b20cbcb8.JPG

 

Edited by Tony Brooks
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On 06/08/2020 at 16:23, Alan de Enfield said:

 

The 99p (for 5) turned out to be the absolute 'dogs bo***x' and have never dropped a 'hair'. Have been back and bought another half-dozen sets, its cheaper than buying brush cleaner / thinners - just throw them away.

I have to say this is what I do - I've never cleaned a brush before - always buy cheap and chuck... I know I'm not very environmental!

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