Topside paint job complete

[DesertAlbin736]

It's been a long & trying project, repainting the topsides & replacing the fore and aft plexi cabin windows but finally completed last week. Long overdue, the foredeck had spots where gelcoat was worn through & laminate showing. What made the project more difficult than usual was that the topsides had been painted once before, but poorly done with brush marks showing & paint getting chalky. That meant lots of sanding with a pneumatic D8 disk sander. Also re-did the bottom paint. Existing bottom paint that I applied in 2016 wasn't bad, but seemed to have lost much of its 'biocide' properties since we got a lot of green slime buildup when we were up in the Pacific NW last year. Still working on refinishing the name boards, so they're not back on yet.

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Also replaced the plexi front and rear windows which were faded & crack-crazed. Thanks to Kerrye for the weather stripping. Finally found that "Round Tuit" to get the job done. Due to our hot climate here I opted to go with white semi-gloss one part Pettit EZ-Poxy deck paint and Interlux non slip paint for the walking areas & tops of the cabins. Compared to the previous slightly darker off white to light almond deck color it's noticeably coolor when the desert sun is beating down on it. Also instead of clear Plexiglas window material I went with a brown tint version.

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Next up I have some serious issues with the trailer to deal with before we make our return trip to Washington state. I'm getting stress cracks in the welded joints at the first cross member where the side "eye" beams start tapering in toward the tongue that have to be repaired. Also the front torsion bar axle is slightly bent & misaligned, something which can only be corrected by replacing the axle. It's chewed up tires on that axle that are only three years old & have less than 7,000 miles on them. I've already spent $4,000 on repairs on the trailer alone in the last five years, mostly tire replacements, brake repairs, hub service, and a previous weld job that's failing again. Just because aluminum trailers don't rust doesn't mean they last forever. This one is 20 years old & is suffering from metal fatigue. You can see in the top photo where a patch plate was added where the cross member welds failed before. Now it's cracking again all around that area. Too much flexing stress. Would be better off with a galvanized steel trailer.

[dkirsop]

Nice job! Looks at least 10 knots faster!

[Dieselram94]

Nice!!! Love the tinted plexus glass! About how much did that cost?
I’m with you, time for a new trailer.

[WillieC]

Very nice job! Did you remove all the deck hardware and rebed or just mask?

[OldDemps]

Nice work DA!!!
Paint is on my long list of “to do’s”

Can you post more info / photos on that project please.

I too have old paint on deck. Mine Seems like areas of latex over acrylic which will need stripping. Chemical or sanding, which removal process was best??

What color name best matches OEM fiberglass?

I’m thinking about using rustoleum topside paint in “oyster white” color. Thoughts?

Thanks

[DesertAlbin736]

I didn't take a lot of photos. Also, I didn't do all the work myself on this job. One of our sailing club members runs an outdoor boat yard/sailboat repair facility at Lake Pleasant. He's the same guy that used to have a shaded facility in downtown Phoenix that was part of his recycling business where he let me use his facilities for free to do the first bottom paint job in 2016 and install lift davits in 2017 where I did all the work but used his air compressor for sanding. But for economic reasons (profitability in the recycling industry is in decline these days) he had to give up that place up and is now set up at the lake. The deal with this new facility, which is totally outdoors with no shade and only has his tool shed made from an old box van truck body, is that per the landlord he's not supposed to allow outsiders to work on their own boats.

I didn't want to do all this work myself anyway since I hate painting, but in the end he let me help some with both sanding & painting with him doing the bulk of the work and I did at best 30% of the work. And of course I installed the new plexi windows myself. The bill for both topside & bottom paint was $1,500. That was for labor only, I bought the paint & some paint rollers, sand paper, and masking tape myself. That's a smokin' deal since we were hard at it day in and day out for almost two weeks which included sanding old paint, laying down a coat of primer, sanding that, then the two coats of deck paint on areas other than non-skid side decks & cabin tops, then finally two coats of Interlux non slip paint on the side and foredeck walking areas and the cabin tops. Then for the bottom paint, scuff sanding the existing paint and rolling on two coats of Petit Hydrocoat ECO. The only downside to this arrangement was that I had to go with his schedule since he still has to split his time between managing what remains of his recycling brokerage business downtown and other boat work at the lake. He also runs a sailboat subscription/rental business wherein for $1,500 a year subscribers can book access to a small fleet of Catalina 25 sailboats on the lake any time they want that isn't already reserved by another member. That's a good deal for someone that doesn't want to own a boat & deal with trailering or marina slip fees which are $360 a month. But that meant that things went way behind schedule since I had hoped to complete this job by the end of March or no later than mid-April because now the heat of summer is coming on fast.

This is his "Tumbleweed Sailing" outfit

https://tumbleweedsailing.com/

The deck paint I used was Pettit EZ-Poxy one part polyurethane in semi-gloss white, partly thinned with Interlux 333 Brushing Liquid which was also used to wipe down the surfaces after sanding. I vastly over estimated the amount of brushing liquid needed & bought a whole gallon when a quart would have been more than enough. Same with the paint. I bought a gallon of EZ-Poxy and used less than three quarts.

http://www.pettitpaint.com/products/top ... -easypoxy/

https://www.jamestowndistributors.com/u ... gJy1fD_BwE

The OEM deck color on La Dolce Vita was an almond or almost light tan, but I opted for semi-gloss white because white is noticeably cooler in the hot sun. We went with sanding to prep, using 150 grit with a D8 disk air sander. It would be a lot of area to cover with chemical stripper. Rustoleum does sell a marine deck paint version of enamel, but only comes in gloss white, semi gloss white, oyster white, sand beige, bright red, deep green, navy blue, black, and battleship gray. I used their sand beige to paint the cockpit floorboards and that was a pretty close match to the OEM gelcoat, maybe slightly more yellow.

We did remove as much deck hardware as possible with the exception of the solar panel, stern cleats, bowsprit, sampson post, and rail stanchions but including all the hatches and associated hinges, teak grab rails, all the snaps for the canvas, dock line fairleads, various eye straps, mast rigging attachment points, Beckson roof vents and rear deck vents, etc. That alone was a fair amount of work, removing and then putting them back on after the painting was done. This was really a fairly major "overhaul" project.

[DesertAlbin736]

Nice!!! Love the tinted plexus glass! About how much did that cost?

Thanks! The tinted plexi cost $80 total for both windows. That was for both pieces precision cut by the vendor using the old plexi as templates. Another $70 for the weather stripping that I got as left overs from Kerrye's window project last year & I still have about 13 feet left over, enough to do either another front or back window but not both.

[WillieC]

Dibs on the weatherstrip! That way we'll be sure to see you this summer.
How difficult was that job, replacing the plexi? That right there would double the value of most of these A25s.

[Sprig1]

Hi on the welds on the trailer. I really couldn't see well enough. But when the the plate is welded on I don't think you need vertical welds only horizontal and use a thicker plate. You can even put plates on top and bottom and just put a weld bead on your vertical crack. I'm not a professional welder!! I use to weld up an old farm loader that was always cracking. Find a good welder that understands metal. Aluminum can be tricky . Good luck! I'm not a professional!!!

[DesertAlbin736]

On the welds, I have a good professional welder with a mobile rig lined up to come out Monday afternoon to take a look at it. The main problem is a basic design one. It's a long stretch between where the rails start to taper in and the tongue of the trailer. There is no longitudinal support between the winch tower and the first cross member and all the stress is on that bend in the rails. That puts a lot of twisting/flexing stress on that angle as it bounces along on the road, the trailer now being 20 years old & has racked up probably over 30,000 road miles over its lifetime. The solution may be to add a couple more box channel cross members, one ahead of and one behind the first one with the rollers and connect them with longitudinal stiffeners and maybe add some more reinforcing plates to the I beams at the angle. We'll see what the welder guy says. He has a lot of experience with trailers and race cars including welding aluminum and comes with good recommendations and past dealings with the guy who helped me with the paint job.

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On the plexi, I removed the old windows by using a utility knife to cut through old weather stripping between the plexi & the opening. The larger front window came out in one piece but the smaller back window broke in two. I took Kerrye's advice on installing the new ones, including using the locking strip tool he sent along with the new weather stripping. Using a spray bottle of dish soap solution as lubricant is essential and using bicycle tire spoons helps getting the plexi to fit into the grooves once you've fit the new weather stripping into the window opening. Takes a little practice to get the locking strip in, which is about the hardest part of the job. Kerry correctly noted that the thickness of the center part of the new weather stripping is about 1 or 2 mm wider than the old OEM stripping, which adding top + bottom makes it up to 1/8 inch difference. So you have to take that into account when cutting the new windows. That may or may not vary between model years, my boat being a very early 1971. I had the plastics shop cut new windows to exact size of the old ones (before I knew about the difference between old & new weather stripping), so I had to take a disk sander with 80 grit & sand down the edges of the plexi. I did this by using masking tape to mark off about 1/16th inch around the edges do I wouldn't over do it & take off too much.

[keoki62]

Nice work DA!!!
Paint is on my long list of “to do’s”

Can you post more info / photos on that project please.

I too have old paint on deck. Mine Seems like areas of latex over acrylic which will need stripping. Chemical or sanding, which removal process was best??

What color name best matches OEM fiberglass?

I’m thinking about using rustoleum topside paint in “oyster white” color. Thoughts?

Thanks

I used the oyster white rustoleum sprayed on with a cap sprayer. And wet sanded. Looks great. 2 years ago still shines like new. I like it because it makes for easy touch up and repairs.

[DesertAlbin736]

Update on trailer welding: Ken the welder came by this afternoon & discussed options for weld repair. We're going stiffen the I-beams at the angle by "boxing" them in from 3 feet back from the angle to 2 feet in front of. By "boxing" we mean welding 3/8" plate cut to fit to between the top & bottom "webs" on both inner & outer sides, welded near & just inside of the edges of the web. Essentially turning a portion of I-beam into square channel, double reinforced where the bending/twisting stress forces are the worst. Then adding strut stiffeners at angles & attach to the first existing cross member & add another new box channel cross member 12" back from the very front one behind the winch tower & tie that one in with struts. One pair of the side marker lights will have to be moved & the brake line & tail light wires relocated to under the webs. All this to be done with the boat off the trailer for better access & to relieve stress on the I-beams & use come-alongs to help pull in some of the twist that the flexing has caused. It was the twisting as the frame flexed up & down that caused previous welds to crack. Also grind out & re-weld areas where previous welds cracked. This will be done with a mobile truck unit that can do the work (MIG welding aluminum) where we normally park boat & trailer. Ken's day job is at a steel fabricator plant & also used to work for TRW, the air bag outfit, and the Garrett aviation turbine company down by the Phoenix airport. This is a side business for him. He's 64 years old, has worked as a certified welder since high school, insured and has done work for the guy that owns the boat shop where we did the paint job, so not a fly by night guy. We'll take the boat up to the lake Friday, launch it & put it in a marina guest slip over the weekend then bring the empty trailer back down to our storage space for as many days next week as needed . We'll probably anchor out Saturday night & maybe even Sunday if the weather doesn't get too hot. Ken's labor price is reasonable, $65 per hour for first 3 hours then $55 per hour after that plus cost of materials, which hopefully won't run much over $200. That's $470 in labor if it runs to 8 hours, $580 if it runs to 10 hours, plus cost of metal. Hopefully won't run over 10 hours labor & if lucky maybe no more than 8 if all goes well. Some of Ken's other weld jobs besides boat trailers have been houseboat pontoon hulls & dragster race cars.

[WillieC]

Sounds like you found the right guy! Hope it all works out. Prices look very reasonable. Can't wait to see the new Dolce Vita!

[tribologist]

Not to disrespect a good welder but I would not try to solve the problem by making it stiffer. Try to find a solution where you are allowing the frame rails to flex/twist and still take the vertical loads from the cross member into the rails. If you stiffen it up locally like you did before it will probably fail at the boundaries between the stiff and the flexible section again. My trailer has bolted on crossmembers that allow the frame rails to live their own life. Making the I-beam into a box sounds like disaster in the making. The stiffer you make it the higher the dynamic loads becomes. Steps in stiffness is also bad. That creates stress concentrations. On top of all this, welding really messes up the fatigue properties of aluminum. There are good reasons why you never see welded aluminum aircrafts... Another approach would be to remove that crossmember all together and allow the boat to be carried by the structure around the axles but its hard to judge from the pictures if that is a good solution.

Ulf

[Dieselram94]

Nice!!! Love the tinted plexus glass! About how much did that cost?

Thanks! The tinted plexi cost $80 total for both windows. That was for both pieces precision cut by the vendor using the old plexi as templates. Another $70 for the weather stripping that I got as left overs from Kerrye's window project last year & I still have about 13 feet left over, enough to do either another front or back window but not both.

Do you have a part number for the weatherstripping? I need to most likely replace my rear window weatherstripping, the front appears to be much newer. However both windows need replacement. I assume it’s 1/4” plexi?