Kayak paint

[Chris Lingwood]

I got a plywood kayak last year which needed a bit of attention but was water worthy. Unfortunately its not faired overly well during the winter and at the very least the bottom needs repainting. Its not the highest quality boat in the world, its just a few sheets of ply fibre glassed together at the joints. In a week or 3 I'm going to sand it down and repaint it with something, not sure what though. The top is varnished (or something similar) but the bottom is painted black. I'd quite like to keep it black but I've no idea what I kind of paint I should be using. Any ideas?

[ChrisPy]

if you want to keep it for a few years I strongly suggest you epoxy-coat it. google for west system epoxy (available from robbins the timber people and elswhere). expensive but good.

Edited April 13, 2007 by chris polley

[Chris Lingwood]

hmmm...it would be good if it was actually water proof and didn't flake How much does that stuff cost? The kayak was pretty inexpensive. How resistant to light is epoxy, it gets stored on the roof which is what killed it in the first place.

[fuzzyduck]

Give the bottom a blacking, and revarnish the topsides.

[DHutch]

Epoxy isnt cheap, and it might not be worth it. Depending on what the wood itself is like.

- However, it would stick, and with a bit of glass sheet in there too make for a very rigid addition.

- UV protected epoxy is avalable, however its prohibitably expensive. So anther option is to just paint over it. Or leave it.

 

Otherwise, if you just going to paint it, you just want a decent marine paint, such as Internationals "Toplac" - which is what we have prevously used on our mirrors (small plywood/glasstape dingy). Or sikkens is offering, as were actually using now. (becuase it was on a promotional discount rate, making it markably cheaper in cost)

 

 

 

Daniel

[Chris Lingwood]

yeah epoxying isn't worth it. Thinking about it, and the uv issue is a big one (seeing as its on the roof) and according to a mate of mine you tend to paint over in polyurethane which isn't submersible.

 

Is shall investigate Toplac & sikkens. Are they both uv resistant? It gets a LOT of sun up there, I could cover it but we also get a LOT of wind!

 

How long does the paint last, i'd be happy with 1 or 2 years tbh.