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Timing for blacking


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Afternoon all.

I am hoping to get an external skin tank welded on my boat but the chap I would like to do it is busy until Autumn, or to be more exact, the boatyard he works from hasn't got any availability until October at the earliest. It was proposed that it would be sensible to do the blacking at the same time to save on the cost of lifting it out of the water twice.

Reading some other posts on this forum, it would seem that people don't recommend that time of year to do blacking, and that Spring/Summer would be better. Coukld someone confirm that for me please as I don't want to get it wrong. Also, how long should I allow for the boat to be out of the water for the blacking? It is 66 feet long and, again from other posts, I am guessing about a week?

Thanks

  • Greenie 1
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October is bordering on iffy, but it could be a mild time. I never have the boat out for less than a week, to do blacking. It gives ample time to prep the surface, dry the surface and black, giving good time to cure. Dry docks can be a sump for cold air - not good, when it is turning cold. Having it slipped might be better. 

 

 

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23 minutes ago, Rick Savery said:

Afternoon all.

I am hoping to get an external skin tank welded on my boat but the chap I would like to do it is busy until Autumn, or to be more exact, the boatyard he works from hasn't got any availability until October at the earliest. It was proposed that it would be sensible to do the blacking at the same time to save on the cost of lifting it out of the water twice.

Reading some other posts on this forum, it would seem that people don't recommend that time of year to do blacking, and that Spring/Summer would be better. Coukld someone confirm that for me please as I don't want to get it wrong. Also, how long should I allow for the boat to be out of the water for the blacking? It is 66 feet long and, again from other posts, I am guessing about a week?

Thanks

 

If it is an indoor heated dock, then you'll be OK.

If is outdoor, then in all liklehood you'd be re-blacking it next Summer.

  • Greenie 1
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When was your boat last blacked? If it could wait until next Spring, then you could see if you got 3 or 4 good painting days while it is out of the water in October, in which case All Good! If not, lift out again next year.

 

I say this because we often get a bit of a heatwave in October so, if you are prepared, you might get lucky. I blacked in early Sept 2019, and was still putting a bit of paint on the side decks and a bit of the sides up to the first stripe, into October, but I was careful to pick my days, and am reasonably sure that I got a few consecutive good painting days - it looks fine today!! :) 

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2 hours ago, Rick Savery said:

Also, how long should I allow for the boat to be out of the water for the blacking? It is 66 feet long and, again from other posts, I am guessing about a week?

Well if you are going to put on 3 coats of blacking, with 24 hours between coats and 48 hours after the last coat to allow the blacking to fully dry before immersion, the timetable looks something like this:

 

Day 1 (afternoon): Dock / crane out and pressure wash.

Day 2: Wire brush to remove loose blacking and rust.

Day 3: First coat of blacking

Day 4: Second coat of blacking

Day 5: Third coat of blacking

Day 6: Allow blacking to harden.

Day 7: Allow blacking to harden.

Day 8 (morning): Refloat

 

And that assumes you have sufficient bodies available to complete each activity in a day or thereabouts. In practice if you concentrate first on the areas below the water line you can catch up on blacking the bits above on days 6 and 7, but even so it's a hard week's work on a full length boat, especially if you are blacking the bottom as well as the sides.

 

Some boatyards claim to be able to do the whole job in about 3 days. Before doing this, just consider how many corners they are going to cut to achieve that.

 

The indoor dock at Aylesbury can be used for blacking at any time of year.

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18 hours ago, Rick Savery said:

Afternoon all.I am hoping to get an external skin tank welded on my boat

 

I wonder what proportion of keel cooled canal boats are built with insufficient skin tanks? I'm sure lots of narrowboaters who never venture from canals don't even realise their engine would overheat if they had to push it against a current for any length of time.

 

I had to fit an additional skin tank myself to rectify this problem. Why is it that so many builders, both budget and higher end, are so incompetent in this respect? If they can't do a simple calculation based on engine output then it doesn't really say much for anything else they do.

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Thanks everyone for your replies, very helpful.

I will check facilities are available at the boatyard - slipway, heated dock etc but in all liklihood will wait to do the blacking until Spring next year possibly.

As far as overheating goes, my engine is being looked at elsewhere for possible head gasket issues. The internal keel tank was not thought to be up to the jobe (possibly, but may have been something else) - neither wer the trombone pipes on the outside that replced it, so, when I get my engine back I will be getting an external one welded on. Size to be determined, but larger than needed rather than the alternative

Thanks again 

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