Painting (?) A New Floor...

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

So if anybody is wondering, here is a status update. I got "bondo glass" and put it on the floor in a few parts. It's nothing like regular bondo. It's not like spreading clay or plaster, it's like spreading a large clump of extra sticky snots. Sorry, but that's the best way to describe it. But it sure it strong, and eventually sands down nice. But it requires a lot more sanding than I thought, and kicks up a lot more dust. So once I'm done sanding, I'll have to give it another very thorough washing before I can start painting. The weather is **** next week so I don't know when it will start.

Meanwhile, I have my test piece of wood. I divided it into four sections. I painted the whole thing with my paint (sans hardener) and sprinkled my traction material on. I've given 3/4 of the wood a second coat. Once that's dry, I'll give 1/2 the wood a 3rd coat, and finally 1/4 of the wood a 4th coat. Based on what I've seen so far, I think I'm going to like it best with all of the paint on top of the traction material. So it looks like I'll taping off my grippy area first, and painting that. Then painting the other 3 coats over that. I might do coat #2 just on the floor. then coat #3 & #4 as a full coat, floor and walls. But between the weather, and my lack of a garage, this may take a while My under-cover structure sits directly on my floor. So I'll need to go with a bare cover after I paint the floor. Which means I can't be expecting any rain otherwise that will ruin the cover and the paint.

This would be SO much easier if I had a garage.

 

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

So my "traction additive" test block is finished.

I painted a piece of wood, sprinkled a good amount of additive on it. Then I painted different areas of the wood with 0, 1, 2 and 3 coats of paint. I'm going to attach a bunch of picture, but, it's hard to take pictures of something so white. But regardless, here's the thing:
The most-painted section is definitely the best. However even that still has "grit" that feels more or less like sandpaper. I feel like my feet will grip it, because it will dig into my feet. Unlike for example, the floor of my fiberglass tub & shower. Which has a very subtle texture that does not dig in to anything and does not feel like sandpaper, but it adds enough texture to the surface of the fiberglass, that is is no longer slippery.

SO is it possible to get a surface like that, or is this situation I have, as good as it gets?
This is the additive I used: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000C029O8/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

 

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

 

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

So you might be able to see the texture a little better in this picture:

 

[bigheaded5]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

I was told that when you put the non skid on the boat, to mask off the area you want non skid, paint IT first, take off the tape and paint the rest of the boat. Not sure why, but he was a paint rep

I was going to do a non slip area. My tentative plan was to do 2 or 3 coats of regular paint, and then once that's fully dry and hardened, tape off just the areas where you'll walk, and do one extra coat of 'sandy' paint. I'll probably do pretty much the same thing, but I like your idea of paint-sand-paint-over better than mixing the sand in the paint. I used paint with sand in it before and I got very very uneven results. Plus it was a little too grippy on my bare feet.

 

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

Well the difference is how many coats of paint do you want OVER the grit and how many do you want UNDER. After painting my test wood, it's clear that I want all extra coats ABOVE the grit.

 

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

So after spending lots of time staring at that piece of wood, I had pretty much decided that space #3 was the one. It had three coats of paint on top of the "grit".

BUT.... tonight I got a little freaky and brought that piece of wood into the shower with me. While showering, I stepped on it with soaking we feet. slid my feet across it, tried to put my weight on it etc. And I discovered that #3 is noticeably slicker than the rest. So now I'm strongly leaning towards #2. Which is 1 coat of paint, one coat of paint with grit sprinkled on, then two more coats of paint on top of that. When it's dry, it feels a bit too much like sandpaper for my liking. BUT if you can't walk across it when it's wet, what's the point. Hopefully this weather clears up and I can get started soon.

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

I used Play Sand from Lowe's and Rustoleum OilBased Paint. One Coat of Paint Sprinkled the sand when the 1st coat was wet. Let dry broomed off the loose stuff vacuumed it up. Rolled on another two coats and Called it good. Works for me!!!

 

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

I just looked. Play sand is nice and cheap. But it comes ONLY in 50 pound bags!
I may pick some up and test paint the other side of my board, and see if it comes out any better.
The texture stuff I have seems kind of soft. So if you push directly on one of the 'bumps', it squishes and the paint bends and cracks. So sand might be better.

 

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

First coat is complete. I have some questions about subsequent coats BUT I'm too tired to write them now.

 

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

Ok so first question:

Do I need to do any prep work between coats? The boat is covered so it should be pretty clean. So I just paint right on my current paint? Or do I have to hit it with acetone again? (I hope not).

Second question:
My blue painters tape was surprisingly sticky. I could barely get it off of the raw fiberglass.
My plan was to tape out a shape along the centerline of the boat so I could add traction additive. But now I'm afraid that doing this, when I peel up the blue tape, it might take the first coat of paint right off with it!
What should I do??

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

Usually you do a light wipe down with acetone between coats. Blue tape should not be that aggressive with sticking. How long did you leave it on? You should remove it about 30 mins after you paint. If the paint has cured a couple of days I don't think the tape will put it off. If it does you have other problems.

 

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

I was going to leave the tape on for days so each coat would have the same nice edge. But then I was told that its best to remove the tape while the paint was still wet. So I removed it pretty much right after I finished. But it wasn't the paint that was having any effect on the tape. It was just stuck to the bare fiberglass gelcoat like it was glue. But now that I think of it, I did apply it a day or two before painting. Maybe that's the problem? Should I try to find some less sticky blue tape? Or shoudl I just wait a few days and then not worry about it?

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

If you wipe it down lightly with acetone and then use the Blue tape, and then immediately painte it, wait 30 mins and remove the tape, I think you'll be fine.

 

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

So I did the traction layer just now. The painting went pretty well. But sprinkling the additive on there didn't go well. The cup with the hole in the bottom to sprinkle the grit on the test board stopped working. So I had to sort of pinch the cup and shake the stuff out. And this paint is so glossy and it's so sunny out, it was very hard to see where the grit was and was not. So the grit is very blotchy, very very uneven And the big "piles" of grit, i was trying to spread them out and the paint I had just painted a few minutes early had dried already. So i dunno, this might end up being a pretty big paint fail. I'll have to see how it looks tomorrow. It did not go nearly as well as it did on my test piece of wood. Granted I did that indoors but the grit was spaced out very even. I guess I should have mixed it in with the paint after all. Although I paint with a brush so even with the grit mixed in, it would probably not come out very even.

 

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

Yeah I just checked on it again now that the boat is in the shade (the sun has set behind my house) and the grit is TERRIBLE. It's so bad, I don't know what to do from here. Any suggestions? I do NOT want to sand off all the paint I have so far, and start over from scratch. I also don't want to stick with the terrible sand piles I have now.

 

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

So I was checking it out today, and weighing my options: leave it the way it is, or do something drastic and end up starting over.

So I'm just going to go with what I have. Today I tried to lightly sand the areas that had "piles" of sand, so see if I could knock lots of it lose so make the overall distribution of sand more even. (not sand but I'm just calling it sand cause it's easier). So I swept the loose sand into the bilge, then I used a very powerful wet vac to suck up the sand in the bilge but I also went over the whole floor sucking up sand all over. But no matter how much sand I suck up, I still get sand all of my feet just walking on the deck. Is there a better way to "clean" and "prep" this layer of paint and sand, for the next layer of paint? If the sand is going to come off this easy, my fear is that it will get all over the brush, and I'll end up with sandy paint everywhere instead of just the taped off areas where I wanted it.

 

[nphilbro]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

Dang, I sure wish I could have caught this thread a few days earlier.

I just finished my deck about 6 weeks weeks ago - although I didn't go as far as you did getting it all smoothed out with with filler.

Regarding the paint:
I used polyurethane porch and deck paint from the "Big Box" store.

The guy at the counter was extremely adamant about not using play sand since it will clump up due to moisture content. I used the silica grit in the bag.

I accidentally went a bit heavy on the first coat and it was also pretty cold in my garage so it was still tacky 12 hours later and I had to string 3 coleman lanterns over the deck about 18" off. The first coat was smooth.

Second coat, much thinner, I sprinkled grit into the roller pan and mixed thoroughly. I did the same on the 3rd coat. 4th coat no grit.

So what now? This is how I might approach it:
If you have clumps I would just peel/break them off and sand with course grit around it.

Apply another thick coat with roller (I used 12" roller and 3" brush) - it will settle into the cracks and roller marks will blend.
Apply heat but not direct sun and away from bugs.
Once it is COMPLETELY dry, apply 2-3 very thin coats of with silica mixed thoroughly but be sure to use the same ratio for each pass and you don't need much- I think I maybe used table spoon for each pan. Again- these are very thin coats. The roller will soak up way more paint than you think.

I sure hope this gets you to the look you need! I was very happy with my result.

WARNING ON POLYURETHANE: gasoline will act as a solvent even after completely dry!

Here's a link about wet-sanding polyurethane too. It sounds like you want a better finish than I was shooting for.
http://forum.woodenboat.com/archive/index.php/t-65875.html

 

[l008com]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

I'm going to attempt coat 3 tomorrow. My big question right now is:
How can I clean the rest of the loose "grit" off the floor, without knocking any more grit loose? The shop vac will scrape much more grit off if I try to vacuum the floor again. I tried a softish brush but that doesn't seem to get enough of the grit that is loose. Any other suggestions?

 

[Woodonglass]

Re: Painting (?) A New Floor...

When I did mine I used a stiff bristled shop broom and broomed it off as much as would come off. Pushed it all into the bilge and then vacuumed it out of the bilge. I then Washed her down with the hose and let her dry. I have a tilt trailer. I rolled on another coat of paint and sprinkled sand where I felt I needed it. After it dried I repeated the process and then rolled on One more Heavy coat. I did not experience any globs or heaviness in areas. On the contrary, I had difficulty getting enuf sand to stick in places. I got a nice even dispersion of the sand. I used a coffee can with a plastic lid with holes punched in the lid. Sprinkled as I rolled to make sure paint was wet when the sand hit it.