I can’t wait to see the floors installed but I don’t want to sand/paint the bilge. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this got me stalled out for a while. Begrudgingly I’ve finally gotten in gear.
I had already done the bulk of the bilge sanding but the bulk part is also the easy part. A lot of the fillets as well as the ‘floors’ needed sanding. The limber holes needed opening up after glassing and several spots needed some extra epoxy where I’d sanded too close to the fiberglass.
I envisioned perfectly smooth surfaces everywhere but I gave up on getting everything under the floor to be just right. Here I will make yet another observation that all this sanding would have been so much more difficult had I already installed the hull sides. Thanks to those who have blogged about leaving the sides off. I would not have come up with that on my own.
Before painting, I also laid out all my floorboards and shimmed them all so as to rest flat on the floors. My shims were cut from a really thin batten I had made earlier in the build.
Priming
I rolled and tipped two coats of primer, sanding with 220 grit in between. I used Interlux Pre-Kote. First coat pics below.
Painting
The inside of my cabin (that’s not bright) will be Interlux Matterhorn White. If I didn’t already have some bilge paint I would have simply painted the bilge Matterhorn White as well. But I’ll save a few bucks and paint the bilge with the Interlux Bilgekote that I have.
Here are pics of final coats…
Storage
I decided to paint the floor of my storage area green. This is only because I had some green paint on hand, I like it, and I’m not planning on using it anywhere else. I’m just painting the bottom, where most of the wear will be, and then I’m leaving the rest bright. It’s a waste of varnish to make the inside face of Bulkhead #2 bright, but I ran out of paint and wanted to get it done.
Paint Thoughts
I still stand behind leaving the sides off until the hull bottom and bilge is painted, but it does make for some thinking about how to mask everything so the sides can be added later. Especially if you’re mixing painted and bright wood in the cabin. For instance at the joint of Bulkhead #2 and the hull bottoms.
Also…my final coat of paint is slightly gritty feeling when I rub my hand over it. I think this is dust but I just couldn’t get a coat without it. I’m hoping I can buff this out later once the sides are installed and painted too.
Next
Some electrical planning and prep…