Painting the hull

I have a 20 foot aluminum boat with a 6 cylinder Mercruiser engine.
I am going to want to paint the whole hull shortly.
Anyone with experience who can explain how they managed to do it?

I am assuming I need to get it off of the trailer and support it in some manner so that I can work on the bottom.
What is the best way to do that?
It is not so heavy as some of the big glass boats but still about 2000 pounds according to the brochures from when it was new.

Re: Painting the hull

i painted my alum. 16ft. starcraft ss with the roll& tip method.only i did not tip it with a brush.did not need to. i used rustoleum marine paint.i am no painter but everyone who sees it says the same thing. you painted it with a roller? used a 4'' high density poly roller. can buy any where.have not done the bottom yet,will do this early spring.if you trailor it you don't need to use bottom paint.i would of painted the bottom the same time but did'nt know about. just make sure you sand it down and fill the dings before priming and painting.

Re: Painting the hull

Mount the hull on supports, Prep it, prime it and paint it. Once you are done and the new paint is set and hardened...... relocate your supports and paint the spots you missed. It will blend in nicely and never be noticed at all.

If you sand through the old finish....be certain to properly prime the bare aluminum spots so the new paint will stick (and stay on)

Re: Painting the hull

Look thru the SC threads:
Starcraft Rebuilds and Restorations

You'll find lots of good info there, and not just @paint

Post up some pix of your boat. Pix junkies we are

Re: Painting the hull



The boat is a 1974 20 foot Lund Tyee with a 165 HP inline 6 Mercruiser.

I want to paint the hull but I don't see myself trying to crawl around under the boat trailer so I am wondering what the best means of supporting it is if I roll it off of the trailer. I can probably roll it back a bit and support the transom with some blocking and then pull the trailer ahead a bit and do part of it, but to get the front will essentially mean I have to roll the whole boat off in some manner and although I know I can do it, I just wondered what other folks have done in similar circumstances. No point in re-inventing the wheel if I don't have to.

I have posted photos before. I have had the boat a couple of years and am making very slow progress with it. I did some work on the distributor and carb this past summer and hope to have it running in the spring. If it runs well, then I will move on to the rest of the work. The wood is rotten. It needs a new floor and it needs the consoles to be rebuilt. I also needs to be painted. Most of the hull is reasonable so I might be able to match the paint and just paint parts of it but my basic plan is the change colors and paint the whole hull.
I will use it on Lake of the Woods so only in fresh water and it will spend a lot of its time on a trailer so I don't need to worry about special bottom paint. Most of what I have seen available says it is not for use on aluminum anyway.
I will use Rustoleum and a foam roller and it should be fine.

Re: Painting the hull



This should work.

Re: Painting the hull

Find the Wizz rollers. They work great.



Go to Ace Hardware and check out their Rust Stop paint. They tint it to any color you want and it's re-branded Rustoleum.

Worked for me.

Don

Re: Painting the hull

This might be of interest..."Paint Your Boat for Under $100 Bucks"

Re: Painting the hull

Hey WoodonGlass, what's your opinion on Rustoleum vs Majic paint. Do you think either is better than the other? I've got another aluminum boat to paint. The Majic paint looks pretty good. Thanks for the tutorial by the way.

Re: Painting the hull

I like how the Majic laid down and the shine! reasonably priced too!

Re: Painting the hull

my opinion only ,never painted a boat before and used rustoleum top coat with high density poly rollers and was amazed at the finish.

Re: Painting the hull

Bwana Don said:

Find the Wizz rollers. They work great.

Go to Ace Hardware and check out their Rust Stop paint. They tint it to any color you want and it's re-branded Rustoleum.

Worked for me.

Don

Click to expand...

I secound that this is great paint. Cheap too, does take a long time to fully dry, but most good paint does!