Re: Paint with roller?
I began with Awl Grip's primer (Number 545) and there were 4 complete coats of it on the boat first. I just kept applying it and sanding it until I got full coverage after sanding with the 3rd coat. Once I had that, one good complete tight coat, I put on one more just to make sure. It too was wet sanded (320 grit). Then we went to top coats. I had been warned that with Awl Grip the first coat wasn't going to be anything too write home about, that it was the second coat where things got good. After the first coat the boat looked better than new. The second coat was even better. The problem was that i am a crap painter and there were still runs and sags by the second coat - but we were learning. There are 4 coats on the hull as you see it in the picture. One of the things about Awl Grip is that what you see is what you get. The paint can not be sanded and rubbed out. In fact scratches and problems with the paint can not be fixed by sanding and rubbing at any time with Awl Grip. You have to get it right the first time. In our case the 1st time came out to be the 4th time. <br /><br />We paid an awful lot of attention to what we were doing on that final coat. It is not tipped. We tried tipping on some of the earlier coats - it did not improve the finish. The way we settled on for the final coat was that my wife went first and applied the paint using a standard 9" roller. I followed behind her by a couple of feet with a smaller, 7", roller with a very short napped cover on it. All I was doing was making sure that we had complete coverage and making sure there were no runs. This method worked, as you can see.<br /><br />In total I used about a third of a gallon of top coat paint to do the 4 coats on the hull. That should tell you, this paint is applied very thin. In fact I will say this, no matter how hard you try you can not apply this paint thin enough. Thinner is much much much better. I simply can no emphasize this enough. Also, the recommendation for reducer (a special blend of the stuff is made just for brush or roller application) seems to be a bit on the skimpy end. There are two slightly different version of the instructions for reducer with the stuff. One says use a maximum of 25% by volume and the other said 33%. What I discovered was that if we began by mixining in 33% it still wasn't enough. What I did was add one cap full of reducer to every filling of the paint tray. By the way, that tray filling was usually just an oz. or two of mixed paint.<br /><br />At any rate this is what I wanted you to get out of it. The paint is expensive, no doubt at all about that. For the primer we used a gallon plus a quart. When I say that what I mean is that I bought a gallon and later a quart of the primer paint, that does not include the catalizer and reducer. I was applying it far to thick, but we were learning. For the final top coat color, the shiney stuff, I bought a gallon kit (which included a gallon of paint, a half gallon of catalizer, and two quarts of reducer). This stuff cost very close to $300 a gallon. I used about a quarter of it to do 4 coats on the hull. My experience with the primer had given me the wrong impression on how much I would need. I bought far more than I needed and could have saved considerable money if I had known how much I really needed. On the bright side, the stuff won't go bad and we will be doing the top side, the cabin and cockpit, everything above the rub rail, and in fact we may go ahead and redo the hull too at the same time. The three quarts of paint we have left will be plenty to do the whole boat with several coats.<br /><br />Thom
