Marine painters in Annapolis, MD area????

[Porkchunker]

Need to find someone who can paint the exterior of the hull of this 16' wooden boat: http://www.thebayguide.com/rec.boats/skopje179.html

I'm in the process of repairing the keel, and once the work is done, I want to take her to someone to paint.

Dad had Rand Spais (Welaka, FL) paint her about 10 years ago. Rand used Emron, so whomever I use, needs to know what to do with the old Emron (sand and paint over, or strip and start over again).

Found one outfit in So. Central PA that wants about $250 a foot (or approx $4k) to do this boat. Since I'm not in the habit of having boats painted, I'm not sure if this is in the ballpark or not.

Anyone know of other reputable boatworks outfits in the Annapolis, MD area whom they would trust to paint their family hierloom? As long as they are withing a 2-3 hour driving distance (including Eastern Shore), I'd consider them in my area.

Anything I can do myself to reduce the prep time and costs to the painter? Since it is Emron, should I strip it, or just sand it?

Porkchunker

[ 02-21-2006, 02:31 PM: Message edited by: Porkchunker ]

[Uncle Duke]

Out of curiousity, why not paint her yourself? A day or a weekend for prep, a day for roller/tip painting, and you're done.

[Porkchunker]

Would probably work, if I knew what I was doing.

I need a lot of questions answered about the previous Emron coating before I try to paint myself.

On top of that, I don't have the breathing gear, or any experience applying the toxic marine paints.

As one actor in a testosterone laden movie once said: "A man had got to know his limitations." Well...I know mine when it comes to laying down marine paints.

Porkchunker

[Buddy Sharpton]

There is nothing particularly "special" about Dupont Imron. It is a linear polyurethane industrial coating like many others- Sterling, All Grip etc.
Is it intact with some loss of gloss, nicks, scraps perhaps, but not wholesale peeling? Then a spot prime the damage, top coat it all over affair. These are not "paints" anymore, but a coating system. Unlike oil paint, here the primer is more like 70% of the total paint thickness, just the reverse of old school. And that you can roll, and smooth and sand to perfection yourself. And if you wait for the right weather conditions, you apply the top coats thin enough so they won't run or sag, use the right speed thinner for the day's temperature, and do the top coating in three rather than two passes,the really fighting the dust is the hardest part. You can experiment with your technique of thinning and appication on a piece of window glass and let it set for 20 minutes and you'll know if you've "got it down" , or need to wipe it off and try again.

Only then do you touch your hull.

As preparation is about 90% or the labor here, another method is to find an AUTO body shop painter with his own gear who will" moonlight" on your premises to apply the topcoats.If his boss doesn't do marine work,then nobody loses. This will take him about three hours if he walks up to a boat masked, sanded, and work area covered for overspray.

You CAN certainly bring the job along this far yourself.

It would pain me for you to spend more than $300 here for that professional help- paint shops get about $60 an hour for shop rate, and an employee painter not more than $20, so you would be paying well for the expertise and provision of equipment. Mind you, $300 would get you a nice HPLV outfit at the big box, and I have seen great results from these on several boats.

Any of the LPU's are dangerous to SPRAY without at least a carbon canister respirator. Forced air supply is more and more the standard in the shops.

If you can "live" with a 90 to 95% as good a job by rolling and tipping, you can do this job entirely yourself for $300 to $400, including about $50 for the 3M respirator and $50 for sandpaper and tape. It's the airborne mist amatuers must stay away from IMHO. And providing overspray protection is completely avoided. You can break the topcoating down into three episodes if you prefer. taping off at the stem and each side of the transom.

Just do you apication looking into the highlight of a 48" shop light positioned ahead of you. You're only working on a wet edge 3 feet long, no the Queen Mary so you can take it easy, pace yourself, and get a great job.

[pcford]

It is generally accepted feeling here in Seattlethat it is bad practice to paint wooden boats with LPUs.

I'd use Brightsides or Easypoxy. Both are fairly easy to handle.

[Porkchunker]

LPUs?...Right speed thinner?...

See...I told you I was over my head.

I can certainly prep the surface. I've done glass work before.

In this case, I've stipped the glass off the keel, and as soon as it gets consistently warmer in my garage, I'll cover it with 3 sheets of glass strip. I know how to feather the rough edges.

But...I think I want to leave the actual painting to someone who had done it before.

Back to the basic question---anyone know of someone with a good reputation in the wooden boat restoration arena in the Annapolis area?

Porkchunker

[Don Z.]

Originally posted by Porkchunker:
LPUs?...Right speed thinner?...

See...I told you I was over my head.

I can certainly prep the surface. I've done glass work before.

In this case, I've stipped the glass off the keel, and as soon as it gets consistently warmer in my garage, I'll cover it with 3 sheets of glass strip. I know how to feather the rough edges.

But...I think I want to leave the actual painting to someone who had done it before.

Back to the basic question---anyone know of someone with a good reputation in the wooden boat restoration arena in the Annapolis area?

Porkchunker

Not sure if they'll do the spray if they don't do the prep work, but Mast and Mallet in Edgewater and Osprey Marine Composites in Deale have been recommended in the past. You may have luck by taking a trip to Bacon's, and asking there, or check their bulletin board in the store.

[Matt J.]

What Don said...

Failing that, hell I'll do it for you for the bargain basement price of $3900. No, really, I would.

[Buddy Sharpton]

i know they're fiberglass, but a J 22 sailboat with dings scratches and such can be put right, epoxy primed, and then top coated with linear polyurethane by a "visiting" professional in our yacht club workyard for about $1700. No owner work involved beyond the haulout on his trailer. $3900 for a 16 footer seems mighty high considering two quarts of topcoat and two quarts of primer are needed.

[Buddy Sharpton]

i know they're fiberglass, but a J 22 sailboat with dings scratches and such can be put right, epoxy primed, and then top coated with linear polyurethane by a "visiting" professional in our yacht club workyard for about $1700. No owner work involved beyond the haulout on his trailer. $3900 for a 16 footer seems mighty high considering two quarts of topcoat and two quarts of primer are needed.

[Wild Wassa]

We have Dupont's Imron on the boat that I crew, 'Stirfry'. She was last painted six years ago. I rejuvenated the coating over Christmas by giving it a cut with #800 then #1200 and then #1500, wet and dry. Filled all of the dings with epoxy and glass macros after the cut (so that I knew what I had) and keyed the damaged areas for the repairs. Then all of the retouchings were done by re-keying the filled areas with #400 and recoating with Aquacote 2 pack waterbased polyurethane, which was rolled on. After 2 weeks of curing the new paint has shrunk enough to be cut to fair, again in stages to #1500. The hull and keel was then polished (but not the transom) using Farecla G3 Advanced Liquid Cutting Compound.

Imron is a hard coating, cutting the paint on the keel of 'Stirfry' was one of life's trials. $4000 to wood your hull by removing all of the Imron and then sealing, fairing (which will probably be done with a high build primer) and repainting her, sounds about right and is a good deal with Imron involved. If done well (and not patchy at all) and to a glass like finish it sounds like good value. I am a boat painter, I'll charge $4000AU just to fair and respray the hull then cut and polished without wooding ... if you get her wooded well, well, you will be laughing.



The repairs that I did were small to 'Stirfry'. I removed and repaired keel rust, fixed cracks, filled dents and re-sealed and faired the scrapes ... the hardness of the Imron made things go slowly. Expect to pay for that. Dealing with Imron is not like dealing with a soft enamel.



At this stage 'Stirfry' had been cut but not polished. The Imron polished to a treat. I'm going to work on 'Stirfry' this afternoon so I'll photograph her polished surface.

Photo coming later in the day.

Warren.

[ 02-25-2006, 10:45 AM: Message edited by: Wild Wassa ]

[Uncle Duke]

The key question here is "what level of finish do you require - the 'see your face in the side and be able to shave' or the 'looks great from 10 feet away' "?
These are very different things. If you are OK with the '10 feet away', then you should really do it yourself - it's not that hard (roller/tip, not spray!). If you have to have 'able to shave' perfection, then hull (not deck, etc.) spray should be about $125/ft even in Annapolis. The problem is that the set-up cost is much the same for a 16' boat as for a 50' boat.
Personally, I would vote for "10 feet away", unless the boat will be a 'trailer queen'.
Pick up "This Old Boat" (Don Casey?) which has a nice chapter on painting, a day of practice, and you're done.... The money you save (many, many $$$) can be better spent on other things you might need.
Like beer for everyone here !!! <Grin!>

[Buddy Sharpton]

Ahem, Uncle. Boats are not like cars sitting on tires where they can carefully be garaged and handles not to bump. If you do achieve a showboat/showcar finish for $4000,how will you feel about tieing her alongside a dock, bumping into the trailer, putting on tie down straps. Can you live with the dings or the extreme restrictions in the practical use of the boat?

Or spend $300 for materials and that respirator mask and do a great job yourself, and be able to repair future dings yourself. Shoot three feet, not 10 feet is more like the distance at which any diffence between the roll and tip job and a professional spray job can be detected. AND THATS FROM THE PARKING LOT OR THE DOCK. Once on board, neither you or your guests can even see the topsides.

[Mike Vogdes]

Porkchunker,
Pick up a copy of the Nor'Easter Magazine, there's a few companys advertising in their that sould be able to help you out. Its a free bi-monthly mag, lots of good local stuff as well as regional stuff now a days.

http://www.noreastermagazine.com/index_MSIE.html

[Buddy Sharpton]

Meant to say AMEN Uncle. Not ahem. Sorry about that.

[Bark]

I'm sure Patrick would do a nice job for you - he's over on the Eastern Shore outside Easton:

www.choptankboatworks.com

[Uncle Duke]

Buddy - thanks, very much, for the clarification. I was really scratching my head about the "Ahem" - went back to re-read my post to see what I had done wrong. When I gave up I had the sense to scroll down to where I could see your new comment. Now I feel much better.

I'm with you on this one - a boat is a boat is a boat, and if you use it, then it will get dinged and dirty. A "good enough" paint job really is "good enough". Roll, tip, move on.

Not my boat, on the other hand.

[rrowlands]

Consider having an automotive body shop do the finish work. They have the tools, space and expertise.

[Wild Wassa]

'Stirfry'. At the end of this season she will get the Aquacote treatment ... Aquacote is a better surface than Imron for a cut and polish (I find) and is what I use to paint wooden boats. Aquacote is available in the US and is made by Boatcraft Pacific.



'Swinger'.

... better than these levels of paint finish is what you should get on your hull for your 4 grand, on a small boat, speaking as a boat painter. Both boats have Imron on their hulls.



This is Aquacote on my Coachwood boat. It looks even better when it is wet. I'd give you this level of finish for 4 grand (which is 6 grand in Aussie dollars). Expect no less from a professional painter.

Warren.

[ 02-25-2006, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: Wild Wassa ]

[paladin]

Osprey in Deale ain't cheap...Five years ago the price quoted to clean, prep and paint 45 feet was over 20,000 bucks, if I removed all the hardware, and there was no hull or deck dings...

[Uncle Duke]

My understanding (which may be outdated) is that charges for prepping/painting the topsides (only) are much less per foot than for prepping/painting deck.
Is that still true?

[Bruce Hooke]

As others have hinted, a key question is do you want to go back with a high-gloss finish like Imron (or some other linear polyurethane). If you do, and especially if you want a mirror finish, then spraying is pretty much the only way to go, and yes it will be expensive and yes it should be done by an experienced pro with all the right equipment, and likely a building in which to do the work. Rolling and tipping an LP paint can also produce acceptable results, BUT I would very strongly suggest that anyone who is not already a pretty decent painter would be most unwise (or daring) to jump into trying to roll and tip LP paint. The high gloss of LP paint means that EVERY mistake shows.

If, on the other hand, you could be happy with a standard marine enamel paint then the work becomes a good bit easier and thus either cheaper, if you have a pro do it, or a bit more in reach of an inexperienced amateur if you decide to do it yourself.

In either case you can probably do some of the prep work yourself and save money that way, but I would start by finding a painter and then talk to them about what prep work they think it makes sense for you to try to do. However, to find a painter you need to have some idea of what you are looking for. A business that can handle spraying LP paint is a rather different creature from an traveling yacht painter who can lay on a nice coat of marine enamel in your (or his) back yard. Granted, some boatyards can do both, but it will still help you in your search if you know what you are looking for.

And one final note, on the right boat, LP paint does have the advantage of being very durable and so usually lasting much longer than marine enamels, so that cost difference does often even out a bit over the long haul. Plywood does lend itself much more to LP paint than a traditional planked hull would.

[Bruce Hooke]

Originally posted by Uncle Duke:
My understanding (which may be outdated) is that charges for prepping/painting the topsides (only) are much less per foot than for prepping/painting deck.
Is that still true?

I'm sure it would depend on the boat, but in general preping and painting a deck is a lot more work than doing the same to a hull. Decks have three big problems:

1. Lots of small areas and things sticking up that are harder to sand and paint.

2. Lots of things that should not be painted and so often need to be taped off.

3. Lots of fittings that have to be taken up and reinstalled or painted around.

Using a power sander I can sand a bunch of square feet of topsides in the time it would take to sand one small corner of a deck that has lots of obstructions to work around...

[paladin]

the deal with Osprey wuz I wuz gonna deliver the boat with the deck clean....

[Porkchunker]

Thanks for all the input.

I certainly don't need a "see my reflection good enough to shave" surface. The boat is 45+ years old, and has seen a lot of fishing, water skiing, etc., and will see a lot more skinny-water fishing flyfishing before I pass her on to one of my sons to maintain. She is not one of those wooden classics (e.g., Chris Craft, Century, ...), so it is not something I'm going to try to show at something like the Classic Wooden Boat show at St. Michaels, MD in June.

I contacted one painter out of "Noreaster Magazine," and that is where I got the $250 per foot ($4k) quote.

I'll continue to check out some marine painters, look at some of their work, and also look into what it takes to "roll and tip."

The boat is already upside down on the trailer (sitting on a custom cradle), so all surfaces are easy to get at for sanding, priming, and painting. If I choose not to do the final coat, I can probably do the sanding, priming, more sanding, etc. to get her ready for the final coat. But before I put too much time into prep, I'll coordinate with whomever will do the final coat.

Thanks again.

P.S. Will the old Imron have to be completely stripped for new Imron to go on? Or can I get away with sanding, then priming and sanding to cover the imperfections?

[Porkchunker]

Originally posted by Porkchunker:
Thanks for all the input.

I certainly don't need a "see my reflection good enough to shave" surface. The boat is 45+ years old, and has seen a lot of fishing, water skiing, etc., and will see a lot more skinny-water fishing flyfishing before I pass her on to one of my sons to maintain. She is not one of those wooden classics (e.g., Chris Craft, Century, ...), so it is not something I'm going to try to show at something like the Classic Wooden Boat show at St. Michaels, MD in June.

I contacted one painter out of "Noreaster Magazine," and that is where I got the $250 per foot ($4k) quote.

I'll continue to check out some marine painters, look at some of their work, and also look into what it takes to "roll and tip."

The boat is already upside down on the trailer (sitting on a custom cradle), so all surfaces are easy to get at for sanding, priming, and painting. If I choose not to do the final coat, I can probably do the sanding, priming, more sanding, etc. to get her ready for the final coat. But before I put too much time into prep, I'll coordinate with whomever will do the final coat.

Thanks again.

Porkchunker: http://thebayguide.com/rec.boats/skopje179.html
P.S. Will the old Imron have to be completely stripped for new Imron to go on? Or can I get away with sanding, then priming and sanding to cover the imperfections?

[Bruce Hooke]

If the old Imron is in good condition and not showing any signs of lifting then you should be able to go right over that after giving it a good sanding. Most people are way too eager to remove all the old paint, and quite frequently this is not necessary.

The one caveat is that there can occassionally be compatibility issues between different types of paint, which usually manifests itself as the paint being very slow to dry. If there is any doubt the thing to do is to try a small test patch. If the paint dries in a normal period of time and doesn't do anything funny then you should be OK.

[Porkchunker]

Ok, I've decided to try to roll and tip this puppy myself. Admiral about went in orbit when I announced I needed $4k. Since I have two boats (a 25' Parker for big-water fishing, and the Porkchunker for protected skinny-water fly fishing), I get a lot of flack about my expenditures. I'm sure you folks can understand that.

Anyway, I checked out a bunch of internet sites about painting--both spraying and rolling and tipping. I'll practice on some epoxy resin coverd scrap before I go after the boat.

Problem I ran into was that almost all the paints say "not for below waterline." So...that will be the next message thread I start.

Porkchunker: http://thebayguide.com/rec.boats/skopje179.html

[Dayton Eckerson]

Porkchunker:
I highly recommend Tom and Candy Adams in Annapolis (410.295.7302). They painted my plastic boat last year with Awlgrip and did a superb job at a reasonable price. They will also work with you to scope out what parts of the job you can do yourself to help save $$$. As someone above suggested, LPU on a woodenboat may not be your best option. They can help you with that decision also as they've painted many old woodies. Feel free to contact me at eckermo608@aol.com if you want more details.

[Dayton Eckerson]

Corrected e-mail address: eckermo608*at*earthlink.net [change the *at* to @ -- spam control]

[Porkchunker]

Dayton,

It really isn't a wooden boat when it comes to the paint. When Dad built her back in 1958, he covered the 5-ply molded birch hull with epoxy resin inside and out, and one sheet of glass cloth on the outside all the way to the gunwhales. So...I guess I would treat her as a fiberglass boat when it comes to painting.

Porkchunker: http://thebayguide.com/rec.boats/skopje179.html