Sunday, April 12, 2009

Scarab 18 folding trimaran Part 14

The mainhull and floats are ready to paint. There are as many different methods of paint preparation as there are builders. I will describe the method I use.
Because the boat is built with flat panels it is very easy to finish. I used peel ply when the panels were made so they are smooth and require little sanding. Filler is applied in a thin even coat (I use Q cells and polyester resin mixed to a peanut butter consistency). Polyester resin is painted over a small area and while still wet the bog is smoothed on with a metal drywall (gyrock) spreader. Metal is easy to clean and does not react with the resin and you can buy them wide enouth to cover the tape and panels in one go. I found that polyester does not like high humidity and will remain sticky for a long time if applied in the rain. This doesn't happen so much with epoxy. Why builders would use epoxy on a small foam boat at 3 times the cost and the related health hazards is beyond me?
If you are using plywood then the above method works well with epoxy resin.
I sand the panels with a 6" random orbital sander and 40 grit paper.






1 comment:

Cord said...

Almost four months without an update now...is this blog dead? Hopefully not, as it really inspired me and made me think about building my own Scarab 18...pictures of a finished boat (sailing?) or other updates would be really helpful to keep motivation to build my own boat...

regards from Kiel/GER,

Cord

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