Covid Project - Boat Painting

S

ScottCK

Active member
well the "social distancing" has given me the time to really rework the paint on my duck boat. I have been fighting chipping / flaking paint for years and I decided to fix the problem correctly instead of just fixing new bare spots every few months. So far I have sanded 95% of the paint off and have a few projects to do prior to painting. the primary project is to have a proper splash rail welded to the bottom in hopes of drying the ride out. Once that is done, I will be painting the boat (bedliner on the inside) and am having a hard time deciding on a color scheme. The boat is mostly a diver hunting rig on basic open water and is the tender to my layout a good amount of the time. However, there are times that I don't feel like dealing with the layout and will hunt next to islands. I have never had a lot of luck hunting out of the big boat in open water.

So here is the question: I can go with one of 3 schemes 1) Gray / Black open water camo 2) Tan/Brown/Green in a big pattern 3) Hand paint a "realtree" type pattern. Thoughts on if a open water changing results if I don't want to use the layout? I can always cover the boat with camo material if I want to set up next to the bank but camo material tends to be pain when working the layout.
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Scott

I think I'd go with option 3 and use Redleg Stencils. We used them on Thomas's boat and they make painting camo patterns a breeze. For long-term durability I'd go with a proven aluminum primer. Ditzler DP is a great one but I don't know if it is still available. For paint I might even splurge for two part auto paint tinted to the colors of my choosing. If not there are some pretty good single pack alkyd paints out there too.

Eric
 
Had a friend that made a frame from light chicken fence and attached it to the duckboat. He attached iron grass to the wire and removed it after the season and stored the frame in the garage. Only had to patch up light spots each season and the boat could be used all seasons.
Guess it could be done in sections for larger boats.
 
thanks Eric I have been looking at Redleg Stencils as an option. I painted part of the boat with FME years ago and that paint was the hardest part of the sanding process so it is high on the option list. the spots with the untouched original paint was a joke, it basically fell off as soon as the sander hit it (but that happens when aluminum is painted without sanding or priming) I am going to put bed liner on the inside and paint the outside.

I just need to figure out what paints, primers, and bed liners will all work together over bare aluminum and the fiberglass matt floor. Right now, I am considering FME for the outside and Raptor Liner for the inside and the splash well.
 
Talk to Lou Tisch about primers for FME as he will know. I did some research and you can still get PPG DP40LF primer and DP401LF catalyst. An automotive supplier here in town should be able to order it if you go this route. This epoxy primer system is one of the best for aluminum. I read somewhere it is what OMC uses on its outboards.

Eric
 
I,ll second that FME paint. Its some tough stuff. Used it uncut on a tandem Kayak project this spring . After sanding thoroughly with 100 grit and complete wipe down with acetone brushed 2 coats on. After 2 week cure in sun its tough as nails. That's saying something on a poly hull.
 
I've always thought about trying to match a Fluke(summer flounder) as a camo pattern for hunting salt marshes.
 
Still flipping between a gray open water camo and a tan/brown bank camo. Just never had much luck in open water out of the big boat (even when well grassed). Layout boat is a different story.

Does anyone have decent results hunting divers out a gray camo big boat?

I just don?t want to go with gray camo and find that it doesn?t work and end up with wrong camo for setting up on bank

Thanks
 
Hi Scott,
I'd post some pictures but I no longer know how to do that on the forum. ;)
There are some Open Water pictures on my website: www.LockStockBarrell.com
In open water, the birds (divers) are not seeing much of the color of the water. They are mostly seeing the reflection of the sky in the water.

Now, if you want to hunt up near shore/reeds/etc...a great option (which sounds completely non-intuitive), cover the entire boat with 6 mil Construction Plastic (Visqueen).
On my website, there is a pdf that explains that and why it's effective. It all has to do with HOW a duck sees. They do not have depth perception like we do.

When we see a large decoy (like our 6' goose decoy/blind), we think..."wow, that's big". When a duck/goose sees it they think (if they could think)...."oh, I'm close". Size determines distance.
We do that automatically ourselves. It used to be that tail lights on cars were low. If you saw tail lights "low"...you new you were close. If tail lights were higher...you knew they were far away.
Then...they started putting tail lights HIGH on vans. In some fog, I saw lights that were HIGH and thought I was far away. Almost ran into the back of a van...yike.
The visqueen against the reeds merely looks like WATER extending further into the rushes. Pretty interesting.
We've been covering our layouts with that for decades when necessary.

Holler with questions and let me know how we can be of service.
Lou


well the "social distancing" has given me the time to really rework the paint on my duck boat. I have been fighting chipping / flaking paint for years and I decided to fix the problem correctly instead of just fixing new bare spots every few months. So far I have sanded 95% of the paint off and have a few projects to do prior to painting. the primary project is to have a proper splash rail welded to the bottom in hopes of drying the ride out. Once that is done, I will be painting the boat (bedliner on the inside) and am having a hard time deciding on a color scheme. The boat is mostly a diver hunting rig on basic open water and is the tender to my layout a good amount of the time. However, there are times that I don't feel like dealing with the layout and will hunt next to islands. I have never had a lot of luck hunting out of the big boat in open water.

So here is the question: I can go with one of 3 schemes 1) Gray / Black open water camo 2) Tan/Brown/Green in a big pattern 3) Hand paint a "realtree" type pattern. Thoughts on if a open water changing results if I don't want to use the layout? I can always cover the boat with camo material if I want to set up next to the bank but camo material tends to be pain when working the layout.
 
Scott I would go with number two. It is what is on my banks and on the last three boats I have had. It seems to work well in open water and on shore lines
 
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OK, very similar to what i do!
Similar reasoning is why I went with open water grey and some light grey waves and no "camo" pattern.
 
Well this was the weekend to put down paint:

Thursday Night: sanded the whole boat (inside and out) with 180 grit

Friday: got up at daylight and deep washed the boat. then let it dry in in the sun for about 4 hours (bare aluminum dries fast in the sun). then scuffed it with a red scuff pad and wiped with acetone. Masked off everything that didn't need paint. HVLP primed it with Anti-Corrosive Epoxy Primer

Saturday: got up again at daylight and put 2 solid coats of the base color on it. once the base coat had flashed, my son and i started painting the camo pattern on the boat. Placing stencils on the boat around the grass rail, handles, cleats (all welded to the boat) was a bit of challenge. I used KEM400 for the actual paint.

Sunday: sprayed the inside with a 8L Raptor bedliner kit in Kaki. I like the color on the inside as it will be cool in the summer but it was too far off from the camo to do it on the top edge of the boat. going to get black Raptor to do that.

[font=Arial, sans-serif]I think it came out about as well as i can do and I know it was done right. I know it is a timber pattern and this is NOT a timber boat but when I am not using it as a tender for the layout, it is up against the bank in fallen timber so I think it will work. Hopefully, I will never have to deal with the paint coming off in chunks again. I have a couple small spots that I will have to hand paint, where I didn't realize that the masking was blocking the spray gun but that will not take much. [/font]

[font=Arial, sans-serif]The last project for the boat will be to have splash rails welded to the bottom to see if I can dry the ride out. Right now it tends to be very wet in chop and a cross wind when on plane. I was wanting to have the splash rales welded before I painted but the welder told me he was not going to be able to get to it until early fall. I also have to spray a flat clear coat over the outside just for the added protection and it should crisp up the colors a bit.[/font]

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Scott

Some people prep really well and then don't do camo so well. Some people do camo really well but cut corners during the prep work. You got them both right! Excellent job and she turned out looking great. You should be proud of your work. It looks very professional.

Eric
 
forgot, I am also going to rework the cloth blind. Thinking about using canvas painters tarp and painting with the same paints and pattern as the boat. Thoughts about doing this? It is basically just the sides as I like to keep a low profile (as much a I can it this boat) I would add a roof if could figure out a way to do it that would be out of the way and that didn't pool water like the original did.
 
Eric, with the boat work that is posted on this site, I would not consider showing something that I didn't think was the best I could do in all aspects. Can't tell you how many hours I spent studying paints and application criteria trying to understand how to do it right. I was very nervous putting down the first coat of primer and paint but once I got going it was easy. The biggest challenge was the wind. I wanted to shoot it outside so I didn't get paint dust all over the shop but the wind kept coming up so I had to move it inside for a lot of it. Definitely going to need another set of filters for the painting mask and a week to clean the shop.....

I got some hydro dipping film in Realtree bottomland that i am going to try doing the anchor light and trolling motor in. It looks simple but I am sure there is a lot to be learned in doing it. I know it is probably overkill to camo the little parts but to be honest, I love the prep work for duck hunting as much as I do the hunting.
 
Beautiful job, sounds like you,ve done it right. As far as canvas replacement take a look at 1000 denier cordura nylon. Will last a long , long time. Many colors and camo designs available on ebay at decent prices. If you want to get away with less cost the camo colors can be painted onto the base color of cordura covering. The o.d greens and coyote browns can be bought very reasonably usually from overruns. Of course the mossy oak and realtree patterns are a little more spendy!
 
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