Re-Painting Aluminum Jon Boat

BoatsRCool · #1 December 6th, 2007, 12:25 PM

Has anyone ever re-painted an aluminum jon boat? I have a 14' Gamefisher that's about 25 years old and I want to update it. The paint is decent, but needs to be refreshed. There are several places where the paint is gone completely and the aluminum is exposed (mostly the top railing and interior) and the rest has the usual scratches.

Do I need to remove the old paint completely or can I sand the current paint and go from there? I did see a thread about Interlux, but I am unsure of the prep work. I want to do this right. Any help would be appreciated.

dubnvento · #2 December 6th, 2007, 11:26 PM

I'm in the same boat as you, but I'm working with a semi v aluminum boat. for the inside I just sanded with 120 and then 320 while still leaving some of the orginal paint there. On bare aluminum I used zinc-chromate and then spray the rest with primer. I'm working on spray the interior with a camo paint in a light brown color. This is all spray paint. I've seen boats that have used Easypoxy and those look great too. I just wanted something simple.

For the outside, if you like camo you might google camoclad. they sell sheets of camo that you can apply to the outside and they look great.

Hope that helps.

BoatsRCool · #3 December 7th, 2007, 12:06 AM

Thanks for the response! I have to clear some space in my father-in-law's farm shop since we just got 6" of snow last night. Too cold to do anything outside now. I just looked at a few pics of my boat and there's more aluminum showing than I had remembered.

I was thinking about 100-120 grit for the whole thing and stripping it down to the bare metal, then applying a zinc chromate primer or Gluvit. Maybe something like EasyPoxy for both primer and paint using the roll n tip method??

I've never attempted to do anything like this in my life so I want to research and make sure I am doing the right thing(s). Can 1-part enamel's be sprayed on using a HVLP sprayer? What's your take on a sand blaster? I have a big air compressor and I barely use it. I'd like to make use of the tools I have if they can help. Thanks again for the tips and pointers.