Painting my aluminum boat

dpepper · #1 February 5th, 2009, 02:53 PM

I am looking into painting my aluminum boat. However, there was a question I have about some stuff on the bottom. Its a gamefisher boat, and it has this hard (almost like bedliner) black stuff on the bottom, and its rough. Could I sand that smooth to paint it? Or is there a reason why it is rough like that? It seems like without that, there would be less resistance. I am new to all this, so sorry if I look dumb..

Bond-o · #2 February 5th, 2009, 03:49 PM

Quote:

(almost like bedliner)

Ayuh,... It proably Is bedliner...

I don't know how to deal with Recoating old bedliner,+ haven't seen any conversations about it,...

Go down to the Restoration forums,+ Try asking down there...

tashasdaddy · #3 February 6th, 2009, 07:01 AM

well those smooth bottoms get slick, what are you going to use to paint the boat. i would try a patch and see how it sticks.

did a some looking, looks like all the bedliners are polyurethane based, an acrylic paint should bond with it not problems. if clean. imho.

5150abf · #4 February 6th, 2009, 07:11 AM

Probably is bed liner, I would suspect that the boat leaked and that was thier fix.

Never done it but I imagine getting bed liner off would not be fun job, if you could even do it, if it will sand by all means do it, if not i would be tempted to paint over it, I am told a rough bottom is actually faster than a smooth one, something to do with breaking the water tension.

The problem with painting aluminum is getting the paint to stick, if you have a good base coat use it.

Anywhere on the boat you intend to paint that is bare metal should be scuffed,(320 sand paper or Scotch Brite pad) and then hit with a light coat of etching primer, after that you can use any kind of paint you would like.

Anything that is painted only needs to be scuffed, no need to take all the paint off.

KLINDWW · #5 February 6th, 2009, 10:58 AM

If it was my boat I would get it off. I don’t think it is making the boat any faster that is for sure. You might go by a shop that does bed liners and ask about the best way to remove it, but I don’t think normal sanding is going to do much. I would think that you would have to more like scrap it off. How ever it is done it will not be much fun unless the bed liner boys have some secret. As far as painting, once the area is sanded to you satisfaction, whip the entire area down with a 50/50 solution of water and distilled vinegar. The vinegar is a good cleaner and also etches the bare aluminum. Once the area is good and dry, you will need to prime any bare aluminum with zinc chromate primer. Once it is primed with the zinc chromate, you can continue with regular primer for what ever type of paint that you are going to use. As far as what type of paint, that is a personal preference driven by what the boat is going to be used for, and how much you want to spend. By the way, once I got the liner off I would put some water in the boat and check for leaks before I started doing any prep work for the painting. If you find a good way to get liner off, please make sure you post it.