The weather was recently quite nice, low humidity and pushing 20+ degrees C, so I decided to apply a coat of Endura topcoat on the outer half of the starboard float. I used a foam roller and tipped out the air bubbles with a brush. Making a long story over a few days - well short, I was not happy with the result, so I sanded this coat down to 220 grit. It is now very smooth but dull. So ...I have decided to leave the floats for the time being with the finishing primer on the hulls. Maybe I will have a professional paint shop apply the final topcoat when I have all 3 hulls ready.
Winter is fast approaching and I hope there is time get the port float all sealed and primed as well.
Update: We weighed the starboard float today, it looks to be ~ 125lbs as is.
6 comments:
Grant not knowing the long version of your story.... here goes this little tidbit... now I have really not done a lot of work with Endura myself, but when our customers brush this on they thin it down. Yes Endura makes a brush on one but our customers still prefer to use the spray on one thinned down. Hope this may help you
Tom
Nanaimo
Hi Tom,
I did thin, possibly about 15%. It seemed very thin and watery in the pot. I would roll on about 2-3 square feet of paint and then tip the air bubbles out. This tipping proceeded as lightly as I could but still seemed to leave streaking in the paint. The paint seemed to lack flow at this point. I'm thinking that
I may not have applied enough paint. A friend has recommended that the gentle use of a hot air gun on a low setting will remove the air bubbles. So the brush would not be required. This seems interesting to me and I will try it when I apply the primer on the port side float.
Too bad you are so far away, because I could paint them with you in my 32' long spray booth. Endura is designed to be sprayed and the paint job is what everyone sees. Why do all of that wonderful construction work and then put on a marginal paint job? Getting a painter to do the final spraying or teach you to do it would be ideal and yield the best result. Also spraying the paint will put on a thin uniform film which will be lighter than brushing. Paint can add considerable weight. I restore aircraft and thick paint can add many, many unwanted pounds. I see many folks who spend thousands of hours building a home built airplane and then they screw it up with a crappy, ugly paint job!
Phil
Sherwood Park
F-32AX Builder
I totally agree Phil, I will not have my hulls look anything but the best. I'm going to do all the preparation and apply some finishing primer for now.
Endura paint seems to have a very short flash time. I would think that paint systems like Perfection that are designed for rolling have additives that increase the solvent evaporation time.
I lived for a short period of time in Edmonton when I was younger --always liked that city more than Calgary.
Grant
125 lbs must be by far the lightest glass float! I only managed about 12 lbs less in carbon.
I will not even try to do the paintwork myself from the above mentioned reasons. I did some spray painting on the new centerboard I made for my old boat and found out it takes to much training to get it perfect to make it woth while.
Your float looks great even if it is dull!
Thanks for the kind words Tor. I think the modest weight of the floats can be attributed to two factors.
1)I used a lighter weight s-glass 8.9 oz cloth for the b-spec inner side laminate.
2) Both a and b spec cloths were a fine weave thin aerospace cloth that I believe requires less resin to wet out and fill. On the outer hull there are two layers of an 8.9 oz e-glass cloth both applied wet at the same time.
The wingnet rails were also made with the s-glass so there was some weight savings there as well.
It's not all done yet but they do seem light and strong. I can live with them.
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