Hi,

Just embarking on my first restoration project. Have recently bought a lovely old wooden hull Enterprise dinghy, and was wondering if anyone could give me some advise on how to repaint her once I've sanded her down?  Is it simply a case of stripping the paint, sanding down, painting with primer, then an undercoat, and then the final coat?  If so could you recommend any paints etc?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Richard.

Hi Merlinboy,

Many thanks for this, I'm about to start with the sanding tomorrow.  Thinking ahead though, would you mind recommending the best process for painting...I'm hearing words like epoxy resin, primer, enamel etc and getting really lost as to exactly what i need to do to make a wooden hull look lovely and watertight, and what the process is to do it all!

Many thanks again,

Richard.

It all depends on how much effort and money you want to put into the boat.

If you want to do a compleat rebuild and replacing large parts of the hull then you may be wanting to use epoxy with a UV filter as a protection and finish, you could even look at getting the local garage to spray it. Alternativly if you just want to tart up hull then sand it back untill there are no flaky bits of paint, clean up the dust prime the bare wood, a coat of under coat and two of top and jobs agoodn! I preferr International paints for a lower bugit but not sure its much better than Blakes. Be carefull about using two pack paints over old one pack as they will blister,

If you want post some picks and I'm sure people will give suggestions.

Try this link......

http://www.yachtpaint.com/Images/29_20471.pdf - http://www.yachtpaint.com/Images/29_20471.pdf

Good for telling you what you need.  Some of the products in the guide aren't available in the UK but any 'good' store will be able to advise.....except Marinemegastore as this is probably to complex for them

Richard,

it depends are you painting the hull from bare wood?  Dont worry about most of the crap you read, if you are painting from bare wood make sure you prime properly and use a single pack paint such as International brightside.  When buying your paints i would speak to Northampton sailboats so they can recomend the right primer/overcoat combo.

Epoxy resin etc are great prducts but other then repairing the hull etc etc. i dont know why you would want to coat it in it, and if you are fairly inexperienced and cant control the temp. etc of your garage i would stay WELL clear of 2 pack products.

If the paint and varnish are in good condition, you can get away with sanding and repainting, the single pack polyeurethane paints are fine, and give a good finish. Remember the quality of the surface prior to painting is dependent on the final finish you will get.

If you take it back to wood, you will need to re-prime the wood before finishing. There was a good article in dinghy magazine, which is effectively a reprint of the international paints website, which gives great advice.

Andy