Re: First Coat Of Awl Grip
Awl Grip is a 2-part paint. Properly its a poly-something-or-another but most folks tend to lump them all together and call them epoxy paints. I am not a chemist and couldn't tell you the difference to save my life other than to say that they are much different from conventional paints in a few ways.<br /><br />One thing is that they shine more than any others. The other thing is that they are much harder than other paints and so resist scrapes and scratches. Another thing about Awl Grip is that once its on there you never wax the boat again, you just wash it off. Awl Grip will last about as long as gel coat. I say that because with roughly a 10~12 year life both of them will need refinishing with normal use at about the same time period. <br /><br />Some things about the paint though. First off its very expensive juice. You can look around but no matter where you go its just ain't cheap. I don't have the receipt here but I think I paid almost $300 for the gallon of it I bought. That does not include the cost of the primer, which if I remember correctly ran somewhere around $150 a gallon. The up side is that it doesn't take all that much.<br /><br />My boat is 23 feet with a full transom and a 8.5 foot beam. To make one full coverage coat on the hull alone required a little under 20 fluid oz. of the paint. Please keep in mind that when I said I had bought a gallon of the paint that its a misleading description. When you buy this stuff you buy the paint, which I got a gallon of; you buy the hardner, which is mixed at 50% by volume with the paint, and the thinner (different thinners required for brush or roller than spray). The mix ration is 2 parts paint to 1 part hardner with between 25%~33% of the thinner added to the total mix. So in mixing up a batch to do our hull I take a plastic mixing cup and put in 10 oz of paint, add to that 5 oz of hardner, and then another 4~5 oz of thinner. This is just over a pint of paint in total but what is important is that for my 23' boat I could easily put 10 coats of paint using a gallon. Three coats is plenty. So in retrospect I could have got away with just buying a quart of paint along with two pints of hardner and a quart of thinner (you use this stuff for cleanup too). It would have saved considerable money.<br /><br />Another thing. The primer for this stuff is just plain horrible to work with. It sags, it runs, it doesn't lay down very well, and it puts off nasty fumes. By contrast the actual color coats of paint are a dream to work with. You simply apply it with a roller as if you were in the process of running out of paint - try to stretch it as far as absolutly possible, and it will amaze you.<br /><br />You roll it on, and tip if if you like (despite what I've told you the fact is that tipping really isn't necessary) and you will see some brush strokes. If you come back 10 minutes later the brush strokes will be gone, if you didn't tip it what you will notice is that the dipple from the roller is pretty much gone. If you come back and look at it 30 minutes later you'll swear it looks like a spray job. What really stunned me was that the appearance of the stuff kept on improving for the next full day. Even after it was set enough that I could touch it without doing any harm it continued to lay flatter and flatter, and gain gloss as it went.<br /><br />This should amuse you. After dealing with the primer for the past several months I was ready to paint. The day before I began I ordered a VCR tape (that hasn't arrived yet) on how to apply Awl Grip with a brush. I figgured I could get away with one coat without the instructional tape because it was going to be sanded anyway. Now I know that the VCR wasn't at all necessary, though I still look forward to seeing it because I'm sure there are 1,000 things about this stuff that I am utterly clueless about.<br /><br />Thom
<br /><br />Thom
<br /><br />any particular reason your not spraying? compressor?
