fill product for painted surfaces?

[Creekboater]

After a couple coats of paint I’m noticing some uneven places that are bugging me. Prior to paint I thought they wouldn’t bug me but they are. Obviously, I could strip the paint and build up the surface with thickened epoxy. But does anyone know of a fill product that could be applied on top of paint and then painted over?

[dbeck]

Same issue with our boat. We believed to have perfect surfaces. But after applying glossy paint, we realized uneven spots, especially at glass overlaps. I think the only cure is to sand those spots, apply fairing and start again. Maybe it is not required to redo the primer over the full surface, but the glossy paint needs to be redone over the entire area.

Personally I feel that some non-perfect spots don't matter at all. First, its these kind of imperfections that only the boat builder sees. Second, when your boat is used the most prominent imperfections will be dings, scratches and dirt.

In the end we decided to not care and we enjoyed sailing in September/October 2024. The alternative would have been to postpone the first launch to the next year.

BTW: The cabin interior, cockpit and anchor-well of our Pocketship are painted with non-glossy paint, just satin looking surface. This makes uneven spots less visible. Only the cabin deck and surfaces at the outside of the hull received glossy paint.

Merry Christmas and all the best for 2025 to everyone in this forum!

[Creekboater]

Merry Christmas!

Yes, that's kind of what I'm figuring. What's standing out is a seam from fiberglass tape joining hull bottoms and sides. Just a big long straight line! I think what I'll do is sneak in a little primer on just that seam.

Great idea on satin for interior. wish I'd done that. I'm doing it for all my bright surfaces.

As I told Terry G. recently, my eagerness to sail this boat is starting to outweigh my building enjoyment!

[dbeck]

Creekboater,

we were puzzled, how the boot stripe hides the kink between lower and side panels [1]. I could imagine a boot stripe will also hide your fiberglass seam to some extent.

I am not advertising sloppy boat building, but almost everything is a compromise and every builder has to find the 'sweet spot'.

Attached is a photo of our boat after a three days on the water. Once dirt is more disturbing than imperfections in the boat finish, one can stop improving the finish but go sailing instead. Try to get on the water in 2025. Just my five cents.

Dietrich


[1] viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1096&start=30#p5838

2024-06-15_15-41-11.jpg (83.48 KiB) Viewed 111 times