Portuguese bridge is painted

I took half a day off yesterday and finished the painting the Portuguese bridge. Before I put all the paint gear away, I think I'll paint the aft deck bulwark and the two door jambs in that area. This way, all the off white painting will be finished until I have her at the launch site and install the wheel house and salon. I'll be able to get a good leg up on some detail work while she's in the barn and all the good tools are close at hand.

I had blasted and primed the Portuguese bridge, then faired grinder marks, the deck:PB joint, and seam sealed the frame to sheathing joint. Once I was happy with how the fairing looked, I spot primed those areas with two coats of primer to seal the porous fairing compound, which will help the top coat look more even. If I didn't seal the fairing compound, it would suck up the top coat paint, and make a pretty decent looking job look like crap.

Because of other things I had going on, I had to wait more than 72 hours to top coat the PB. If you wait longer than 72 hours, a chemical bond between the top coat and the primer will not happen, so you have to scuff the primer to get the top coat to bond to it. I use the red 3M scuff pads for this job, and they are made for just this application. I have a hook and loop dual action air sander, and I cut the scuff pads into a six inch diameter circles, they will now hook on to the sander and make quick work of a tedious job. Once the scuffing is completed, I blow the work off with my air compressor then tape and paper the area I don't want paint. I bought a tape/paper applicator at Lowes the other week, and I have to say that while the tool was fairly inexpensive, it did a nice job. It did such a nice job and made taping so much quicker, I have to recommend it as a tool one might want to consider purchasing for any paint work. That $17.00 tool paid for itself in no time on what I had just done.

The scribe line marking the wheel house layout was starting to get a little faint, so I decide to paint the wheelhouse deck using the wheel house scribe line as my layout. You can now see how the wheel house will fit in the scheme of things. The wheel house floor is going to be cork, so I'll use some less expensive metal primer and paint, and apply that will a roller. I'll glue down 1/4" plywood as a substrate, and apply the cork to that. Spraying the cheaper paints is not such a good idea as the paint tends to stay wet while it's floating around the shop. Whatever it lands on it sticks to it. Because of the quick evaporating reducers I'm using with the high dollar paint, the over spray acts like heavy dust when it lands in the barn. I still protect my new shiny paint from over spray, and if I do get some on a good finish, a little rubbing compound will take it quickly off. Not so with paint such as Rustoleum.

Now that this painting is finished, I'm going to spend the rest of April getting some detail work completed. I have a some sand blasting guys stopping over so I can get an idea of what the cost of blasting below the water line will be. The sooner I get the bottom blasted the sooner I can barrier finish painting the hull. Getting the boat on a dolly is a big deal for me and I want it done well in advance of moving her to the launch site. You'll probably start to notice a consistent theme in my future posts, and that theme is going to be " getting her to the launch site".

One thing I'm starting to realize is that this is a big boat. On deck she's 44', and over all she is 48'. The living spaces and machinery spaces seem to go on forever, and the wheel house is huge. Once the wheel house and salon are in place, the displacement will begin to be felt. With the hydraulic bow thruster, I feel she'll be able to be single handed, but I do feel she's close to needing an admiral.

So, here's to getting her to the launch site and seeing more shiny paint.