Are you getting tired of the endless paint conversation? I don’t blame you. We’re pretty tired of it too, to be honest. Just a few more rounds of sanding and priming, sanding and painting to go!

This week, the focus is on the green stripe. StripeS. We’d initially decided to go with Interlux Brightside for this section. This one-part paint is slightly easier to work with, it’s less hard (so accommodates the movement of the wood better), and is what we had on applied most recently. I think we’ve got a half-empty can of paint from somewhere around 2000 lurking in one box or another . . . We bought the paint we need (not much), taped off the area when we primed and painted the white, and then started the conversation.

Maybe you guessed it? We decided, on Saturday afternoon, that we’re going with Interlux Perfection for the green bits. Paint we know how to apply by now. Paint that’s more durable and should last longer than the Brightside.

Paint that requires we get the old Brightside OFF the green. Sigh. Instead of just scuffing hard and using the one-part primer over existing paint, we need to get any one-part paint off. Here we go with some boat archaeology!

The green stripes had, once upon a time, been coated with Awlgrip, another 2-part system. We’d overcoated that with grey Interlux 1-part primer before slapping on the Brightside. Because 1-part paint is less aggressively chemical (best way I can think of to describe it - feel free to correct my interpretation!) than 2-part, you can apply 1-part over 2-part. You can’t, though, do the opposite. Want to go back to 2-part paint? Start sanding. A lot.

“This is a bit more work than I’d expected,” said J as he changed the paper for the 8th time. It’s been a solid 2 days of sanding, with a tiny tiny bit more to go tomorrow. Actually, he’s still at the boat sanding. It’s 7:30 pm; I needed to get back to get dinner started since we don’t really have any “ready to roll” meals on hand. I bet he’ll stay until he’s done. Any bets?

All of this is, of course, in deference to the schedule. In a week, we’re coming out of the shed. In 7 days, we need to apply 2 coats of primer and 4 coats of paint. YIKES.

It’s not just the schedule. If we really thought it was unworkable, we’d change it. We have already, shifting the “move out of the shed” date from April 28 to May 1. But it would be far too easy to, well, take it easy. By driving to the somewhat arbitrary date, it means this period of super intense work has an end point. Working 12+ hour days when there’s no finish line? Unsustainable. Working 12+ hour days for another week? Painful, but doable.

Bring on the primer!