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Painting a fiberglass canoe..??

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East of Winnipeg, Manitoba
So in a month or so i am planning on building a canoe (or 3). But first i need to get my existing canoe ready for this year. A previous owner did some patching to it, poorly, and then sprayed over it with a slightly different shade of green. I would like to repaint it. It is a fiberglass nova craft Tripper. I am planning on sanding it down and doing a bit of patching, then i want to paint the entire thing.... in an off-white/tan colour. Do i need to prime it? What kind of paint to use? I read someone here suggest oil based porch paint. I read somewhere else online someone suggest rattle cans, and then someone else say definitely not using spray paint. Has anyone here repainted a fiberglass canoe? What paint to use? Please help.
 
I would like to repaint it. It is a fiberglass nova craft Tripper. I am planning on sanding it down and doing a bit of patching, then i want to paint the entire thing.... in an off-white/tan colour. Do i need to prime it? What kind of paint to use? I read someone here suggest oil based porch paint. I read somewhere else online someone suggest rattle cans, and then someone else say definitely not using spray paint.

Not spray paint.

Not porch paint, that stuff goes on thick and heavy.

I’d use a quality topside paint, Rustoleum Topside is fine, EZ-Poxy is better.

More here, with photos, than I feel like retyping:

https://myccr.com/phpbbforum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=48607
 
On the TLC boat just finished I rolled on Tremclad rust paint, it is inexpensive and of late Tremclad seems to be the only "rust" paint in Canada that is still oil based as the other companies are moving to water based.

We have used Interlux Brightside topside paint but it is pricey and less available.

If I had the space and equipment I would spray but rolling with a foam 4" roller works fine and a brush for along the gunwales.

Karin
 
I use Rustoleum, which I believe is the same/similar to Tremclad in Canada. Doubtless there are better paints out there but it's cheap, available locally, and works fine. Some stores mix colors for it.

Very slow cure time though.

Alan
 
Doubtless there are better paints out there

Magic Eightball paint question. The 20-face die answers, “Ask again later”. The small print reads “Much later”

Or maybe not that much later. These paint test panels have only been up since July of 2020. I expected it would take a few years to show results, but even nine months later there are noticeable differences. The start of the test:

https://www.canoetripping.net/forums...opside-take-ii

I wish I had paid more attention to the various cure times, doing the scrape tests repeatedly over the course of a week as each sample had time to cure. Provided you are not in a rush to get out on the water, test scratchings nine months post cure times offered some distinct differences.

An unintended test; the Sharpie labeling the test paints had already faded to near invisibility. Don’t paint your canoe with Sharpies. I relabeled the panels using an enamel paint pen, and dated them 7 – 20 instead of searching for the test start date. The exposed Sharpie was all but gone in 9 months; I’ll be curious about the paint pen durability.

P5010006 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Visual and scratch/scrape observations after nine months in partial sun, with the panels held vertical and facing east:

Rustoleum Enamel brush
The worst of the lot in terms of shine or gloss. That was a surprise.
Tough in a scratch test; the nail or church key took some pressure to make a full paint-depth scratch through to the Royalex panel.

Rustoleum Enamel Spray
Much glossier than the brushed enamel (another surprise)
Much easier to make a full depth scratch (not a surprise)

Rustoleum Topside
At least as glossy as the Rustoleum spray, and like the brush Rustoleum it is white, a color which may by nature be less glossy than black.
I had to apply some serious scraping pressure to scratch through. Topside paints are made to resist scuffing and scraping.

EZ-Poxy Topside
Very glossy. The shop glossimeter is needs calibration, so that is a completely subjective observation.
EZ-Poxy is some seriously tough stuff, I had to bear down hard with the nail point, the blunter church key point didn’t get far.

In my usual sloppy scientific manner I applied a single, very heavy coat of each paint, instead of laying multiple coats over the course of a week, lovingly wet sanded between topcoats. And I could have spent $100 on a two-part epoxy paint and catalyst.

And I should have affixed the panels held horizontal; the bottoms of canoes stored unprotected outside take the worst UV beating.

The panels are going back up, but first y’all get a vote. Screwed in horizontal where they were, or screwed in held vertically so the sun can really beat down on them this summer?
 
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On the TLC boat just finished I rolled on Tremclad rust paint, it is inexpensive and of late Tremclad seems to be the only "rust" paint in Canada that is still oil based as the other companies are moving to water based.

We have used Interlux Brightside topside paint but it is pricey and less available.

If I had the space and equipment I would spray but rolling with a foam 4" roller works fine and a brush for along the gunwales.

Karin

I think Interlux Brightside is what Tom MacKenzie used on his LoonWorks boats.
20190828_150552.jpg
 
Interlux Brightside can yield a beautiful yacht like finish, but is a little pricey. It can be done with a foam roller tipped over with a foam brush. The technique shown on the CLC website can yield a perfect or near perfect finish if done well. If done properly there is no sign of brush or roller marks so no need to spray. I have not done the technique with paint, but it worked great with a quality varnish. Here is a link to the varnish video. I think the brightside is applied the same way, but you should to do a little research or some testing. I've seen Chris's results and they are beautiful. I managed a really nice near perfect varnish finish on a stitch and glue kayak using the same technique.

https://www.clcboats.com/shoptips/bu...der-video.html
 
I have looked into it. Interlux is $65 a pint. IF i can paint entire canoe with one pot then it isnt too expensive. Tremclad is around $20, so there definitely is a cost difference, but not too bad if i only need 1 can. Alternately Canadian Tire carries this stuff... https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/marine-paint-high-gloss-3-78-l-0489705p.html

Solignum brand marine paint... anyone ever tried it?
 
I have looked into it. Interlux is $65 a pint. IF i can paint entire canoe with one pot then it isnt too expensive. Tremclad is around $20, so there definitely is a cost difference, but not too bad if i only need 1 can.

I doubt that you can coat an entire canoe hull with a pint of paint. Working with quarts the first coat often uses up at least a third, sometimes nearly half the can, the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] and 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] coats use considerably less, so I can get three coats from a quart, with a wee bit leftover for future touch-ups.

Applying multiple coats offers several advantages for me. Certainly more scratch and scrape resistant, and I have a better feel for the roller and foam brush tip out action on the subsequent coats.

EZ-Poxy runs $60 to $65 on Amazon in the US, although I’ve found cans of EZ-Poxy black and Fire Red on sale for less. No idea how pricey it is in Canada, but of the four paint varieties tested so far it is the clear winner.

EZ-Poxy was suggested by a well know canoe builder and restorer.
 
Don’t know which specific Interlux paint you are looking at.

Interlux makes some good stuff, but the only product of theirs I have experience with was a very pricey 2-part system with some catalyst.

Great coating, but I have had some leftovers stored for years, thinking “There’s like $40 of un-tinted base left, if I just order another can of base, some pigment and more catalyst, that will only cost another $100, and I can use it up”.

Yeah, never did, still stupidly have some, probably not viable, waiting for Haz-Mat day at the dump.

Whatever coating you use I highly recommend decanting the remains into something like a pint can and labeling the lid with brand and a dab of paint color. A 90% empty quart can of anything will film over or go hard in a hurry.

I can’t find clean pint or half pint cans anywhere, so I acetone rinse out used-up 8oz cans of stain or finish, and use those to little-headspace-store pricey paint remains.

If anyone knows where to buy clean pint or half pint cans I’m all ears. I need a few.
 
I've used various sized glass jars from pickles, relish, olives, mustard and whatever else is about the right volume, well cleaned, to keep smaller amounts of paints in without much air space inside. Helps stop any skin forming over the surface.

Since the screw-top lid won't be as airtight as a paint can lid, the jar goes into a plastic bag tied closed. Works great, paints and varnish kept this way for years, still usable. The bagged glass jars don't look as good as paint cans but they're kept out of sight and labelled in a cool basement space.

The lids might become stuck and un-unscrewable if any old paint dries on the threads but a paint can lid removal tool usually helps loosen the lid enough.
 
I've got a Great Canadian that I paddled the heck out of for years. It spent a lot of winters under a cabin Down East and got borrowed quite a bit. Some of the cousins took it out in the fall and left it half in the water tied to a tree on labor day. Sometime After Thanksgiving I got a call from a local. It needed a lot of duct tape to get through the next year. I took it off the lake and tossed in a buddys back yard and there she sat for 4 years. I had a family reunion comeing up, so I scrambled a spring road trip back to Maine, showed up at my buddy's to retrieve the hulk. He was dubious that there actually was a a canoe in the thicket, but out she came. Drove the wreck home. If I wasn't so attached to this boat I would not have spent the multitude days of grinding and gooping, but I got it back together in time for the reunion. Since then the boat seen a lot of salt water and has been in the sun enough to sun burn the epoxy out of the glass a bit and it's still got a mess of scratches that need to be faired out. ............

And after all that, when her bottom is baby smooth, before I paint her, I'll be washing her down with a wax remover.
 
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