::Yawn::......Sanding Primer

On Saturday, the 11th of September, I got a fairly early start on Froonie - after the ritual stop at the 'big orange box' store for restoration sundries - and proceeded to set-up for some sanding work. With sanding you have to mentally leave your body, at least this is necessary when it comes to the amount required through a boat restoration. How much sanding? Well, let me count the ways...there is removing the bottom paint, removing the layers (yes, plural and bold for emphasis) of old topsides paint and primers...there is countless fill and fair sanding, and then you get to the "putting-back-together" stage, and this requires a few coats of primer with - you guessed it - sanding in between coats, and finally finish coat(s) with sanding in between. The outrageous run-on sentence still does not properly give you context, so you'll just have to trust me on this one (or go do your own restoration). So, I mentally prepared myself, and began...

Here I have taped off the companion way and forward hatch, as well as the ports to reduce the amount of cleaning the sanding would necessitate if left untaped. All sanding of the primer was accomplished with 220 grit (sheets and 5" ROS pads).

Not a lot of detail in the picture, but here is the foredeck after the sanding was complete. The process I followed was to begin with small sheets of paper (ripping an 81/2" x 11" into quarters) and hand sanding the tight areas: transition from non-skid area to smooth deck, inside corners, deck to cabin roof sides, etc. After the hand sanding, I moved to my 5" DeWalt variable speed ROS finish sander using hook and loop pads, and covered the larger areas of the cabin roof, deck sides, foredeck, poop deck, and cockpit.

Because my mind had left my body there to deal with the sanding torture, without thinking I immediately turned to the primed topsides after completing the deck sanding. The topsides have been primed three times, so this was the third sanding of topsides primer - with one more to go. I used 220 grit with the 5" DeWalt ROS on the topsides as well. After a marathon session of 8 hours sanding, 4 bottles of water, 2 bottles of sports drink, and 2 Diet Mt Dews...I was ready to clean surfaces...did I mention it was 98 degrees outside?

After vacuuming the decks to remove most of the primer dust, I solvent washed the decks and topsides to remove trace amounts of sanding residue. The primer that I am using on the decks and topsides is Interlux Expoxy Primekote. The product is made for surface preparation for two-part polyurethanes such as Interlux Perfection - which I am going to be using. It does a great job filling tiny imperfections in the surface, but after a couple applications. The first application of primer to the decks provided me with a number of areas that needed additional filling and fairing. Albeit small, the voids would require epoxy-based fillers in the process of bringing the decks to fair. The picture below shows the foredeck after applying fairing filler: West System Epoxy with 406 colloidal silica and 407 low-density fairing filler. The starboard foredeck was by far the worst offender, I hit places here and there on the balance of the decks.

With everything buttoned up for the evening, I gathered my mind and reunited it with my body and left for the evening. Here is the Prius "work truck"...