Painting the Deck

A "Before" Shot of the
Islander Deck

  Modern boat paint is impressive! This deck had been painted years earlier and it was still in remarkable shape. Even so, there were signs of wear and a few spider cracks. So we decided to strip the deck of all hardware and teak and apply new paint.

The Newly Painted
Cabin Top

   I find the work proceeds much more smoothly and continuously if I break it into segments. Thus I started with the top of the cabin. Fortunately a teak spline runs all round the cabin top just three inches or so below the crown. Having removed this spline, it was possible to mask of just the top of the cabin knowing that the paint joint would be covered when the spline was finished and reattached.

The Primed Cockpit Area

   To prepare the deck smooth surfaces were sanded with 80 grit paper and then through 220 in a couple steps. The non-skid surfaces could, of course, not be sanded without removing the moulded pattern that made them non-skid. A wire brush in the chuck of an electric drill (seen in the red drill on the cabin top) did a good job of cleansing the non-skid without removing it. The sanded/abraded surface was then cleaned with Interlux 202 Fiberglass Solvent Wash using the two rag method. AwlGrip 545 Epoxy Primer was then applied. Note that this primer is not friendly to all foam rollers. Get a roller intended for epoxy! And tip the foam applied primer to smooth it.

   A single layer of primer was followed by three coats of Interlux Brightside (thined slightly with 333 brushing thinner) single part polyurethane. The smooth portions of the deck were sanded with 220 paper between coats. I like the 3M sponge sanding blocks for this work. Used with water, they last and last. The non-skid was not painted at this point nor was it masked so the white paint for the smooth cabin top encroached to some partial exent on the non-skid.

   When dry, the non-skid areas were carefully masked. A 1/8 inch wide vinyl masking tape from 3M was used to define the non-skid since it could be smoothly bent round the small radius corners. When this tape was complete, a second 2 inch wide blue 3M masking tape was used to extend the narrow coverage provided by the thin tape. Seattle Grey Brightside in two coats completes the deck repaint. Because of the non-skid pattern it was not possible to sand between coats. Just to be safe we applied the second coat within 24 hours of the first.