Week 20/21 - Varnishing / Painting

Painting and Varnishing... this is more or less the end of all woodwork on the built of Glóey.
However another very exciting step leading to the final finish.
All starts with a general preparation of sanding through the different grits.
First we checked the hull and had quite some smallrepairs to do before beeing ready to paint. I talk about minor damages that occured during the buildingtime. The most of it could be filled with P38 a polyesterbased filler that goes off in minutes. Then the whole hullsurface above the waterline got cleaned and tacked off (getting all dust away with tackraggs). 

We masked the painting-perimeter with 3M's Blue Tape and then we were ready for the paint.
Because of the low temperatures in November we had to build a tent around the boat and heat the inside up with a small ventheater.
I've choosen a 2-pack paint in a light and very warm grey from EPIFANES... timeless and elegant with all the warm timber-nuances.

Many weeks before when we did build the cradle we decided to place it so that it supports the hull just below the waterline. This allowed now to first paint all the parts above the waterline.
When changing to prepare for the antifoul below the waterline we've built a jig through the openings of the portholes (see photo) which allowed to take the cradles away.

Ok, 2 coats of PU based 2-pack paint above the waterline (rolled and tacked-off) and 2 coats of EPIFANES Foulaway below (rolled only). We used West System's yellow special rollers which are expensive but work really well.
The parts where the keel was stepped on 2 wooden blocks was allready painted with antifoul while the boat was on the crane some days earlier!

Well, so far so good... time for the bright varnished parts.
The same deal here, all starts with a really substancial sanding beginning with 120 grit then 150, 180 and finally 240. The mainproblem is that when sanding with the rougher grits you can't use protecting gloves which results in very very very smooth hands :-) ... to be honest we just managed to finish sanding on that boat when the first fingers started getting bloody!
After a general clean with the vacuumer (equiped with a hairy hole) we cleaned the whole surface with white spirit and finally got all dustparticles away with tack-raggs. All bright varnishing was made with single-pack varnish starting with 4 coats of EPIFANES Rapid Clear which builds up a certain thickness without need for sanding inbetween. And after that 2 coats with traditional Clear Varnish from EPIFANES with a sanding with 400 grit paper inbetween (first 240 grit after Rapid Clear). It was as much as was possible in the resting time before the boat launch respecting the recommended overcoatingtimes etc.

The contrast between the fully sanded boat and the newly varnished one is enormous and every stroke with the brush is a pure joy when you can see the beautiful mahogany shining through...

Compare the two photos and you can imagine what i mean... there is something magic in varnishing :-)

However the whole process off painting and varnishing is a very interesting one and it brought Glóey much closer to her final look.
Some words to the coachtop: after sheating the top with canvas we coated it with Seatech (Hempel) a 2-pack epoxy primer. On top of that we applied the same 2-pack PU paint as on the hull.

Inside the benchboxes in the cockpit we also used Seatech and the aerea behind the benches is painted white.