The AWLGRIP Knowledge challenge

Morris yachts paid me to paint a boat before,,,they just wanted me to squirt it,,they prep'd it,,,,,by the time we FINALLY got it painted right,,, they went through about a half a mill.$ to get it figured out.

 

I still say that heat alone will not cause the blisters. Heat with poor prep, maybe, but if the black was put on correctly it would not blister. This paint job might as well be black. It has been sitting in South Florida summer heat for 4 months. No problems. Of course its roll and tip. That might be the answer

 

it isnt the "snailing" it was the prep.black does get way hotter,,,but not THAT much,,,,for heat to make your boat delaminate,,its gotta be hot,,,,like WAY hot.
hotter then the sun will get it,,,,,,, them saying it was becuase the "black" made it soooo hot that the resin melted?,,,nope,,,thats just their easy way out as usual.but,,, they made a bigger "sale" telling him that,,,now he's gonna spend more money on white,,hehe

 

If they said that crap to me I would have sued them. Since when can't a marine paint stand tropical heat!? (and he isn't even in the tropics) They had better give him the new paint!! and pay to have it sanded down.

 

The last time I shot the black area with the temp gun it was 189 and rising. So I didn't believe the Awlgrip guy and went down yesterday to cut open a blister. I couldn't lift the PAINT with a razor blade because it adhered nicely to the gel. ( High marks for the paint job) Mr. Awlgrip dug a hole in the surface with a pen knife. You can plainly see the black layer, the white Awlcraft layer, the final light gray primer, the two coats of white primer, before you dig through the gel to the glass below - void between the gel and the glass. Like I said, this area was painted white for years. Never had a bit of problem, but it truly is cooking in there. This boat is a 1990 model so I'm dealing with fiberglass technology from 18 years ago. No high heat hardeners or anything like that. $#!) - I sure liked that black look. Maybe next year.

 

until you sand PAST that bad point,,you'll always get it back,,and i built boats 18 years ago,,and the stuff worked then just like now,,,even poly doesnt "break down" from heat from the sun,,, unless totally unpainted,,,then its the uv rays that break it down,,,,not the heat.the reason you didnt see before is exactly right,,,cause its white,,,,,you dont notice that stuff when its white,,,,,hehe,, is a used car lot trick,,,,paint it white.
if it IS from your resin,,,its because something wasnt done right,,,,not because of black.
if black paint did that to boats,,,,even OLD ones,,,awl-grip would have that disclaimer ALL OVER the place.
,,,, you can believe the pro's,,,,but even after you paint it white,,,,you'll always see them, now that the black made them stand out and you know what to look for.

 

and if theres a void between your old gel,, and the glass ,, i would say they shot it wrong,,or a handful of other things that points to instead of "black paint"

 

Guys,

A lot of resin systems (both poly and epoxy) were never designed to see 180F plus. At these temps they might reach their HDT or even Tg. This does not permanently damage the resin, per se. But it most definitely can do damage by delaminating, allowing creep, bending etc in a structure made with that resin. When the resin nears Tg, it ceases to be a true solid and begins to behave as a viscous liquid. If it's under some kind of stress at the time, things will start to move. Then the fun begins Owners of fiberglass aircraft are strictly forbidden to paint their machines any dark color. And they are built to VERY high standards with vac. bagging, epoxy, autoclaves and etc. They also use resin systems made for high temp service. But they still don't trust it enough to let owners paint them a dark color.

Jimbo

 

Awlgrip Issues -- Going from White to Dark

Hopefully I didn't miss the answer to this earlier in this monster thread . . .

So I am considering buying an old fiberglass sailboat (late '60s build) and I just had a technical rep from Awlgrip tell me that I should not consider changing the hull color from its current white to flag blue or dark green. According to them, about 75 to 80% of fiberglass boats that are pre-1995 will have problems if you go from white to a dark color like this, because it creates a "post-cure" issue due to the high temperatures that the fiberglass is subjected to. The recommendation was, if I really am set on this, to pull the boat, spray paint it black, let it sit for 9 months to a year (thus causing the post-cure reaction to occur before the awlgrip goes on) and then paint it blue. Otherwise, I likely will end up having to repaint inside of a year or two (after which presumably it will be fine?). Any of you gurus have experience with this? Am I stuck with white if I buy the boat?

Thanks in advance!

 

he's full of,,,,well not full,, but half full of ca-ca.
it dont matter if your boat got "hot" with black paint before you try blue.if theres gonna be problems with the color,,,it doesnt matter what color or how long you had it on "before". if blue was gonna be a problem just because your paint was white,,, it will cause them problems even if it was black before. and your in new york,,,ya dont get nuff sun to worry bout it,,haha

 

I think Jim speakum truth on this. If the resin/gelcoat system they built the boat out of was not up to the task of being black when they first built it, it won't be now either. And it won't get better by painting it black now and waiting a year. I think that's just one of those crazy hoops they (Akzo-Nobel) ask you to jump through to discourage you from doing what they don't want you to do. Very few people would be willing to let their boat sit a freaking year in a yard waiting for their paint to ????? Most yards would not like that either. But dark colors can be a problem; see post #398.

Jimbo

 

Jim never spekum truth, Jim speakum Jimees.
Do your prep , sand, sand, sand, make sure you have no contaminates and go for it. There isn't a better color (that you can get off the shelf) than Flag Blue, but it is a mugfqwy fu$#@$ to get right. Go back over some of my post. The pics are roll and tip Flag Blue. That Benny is 1989 and it was white.

May the paint Gods be with you.

 

Jer,

I'm glad that you had success with a dark color. Without good prep and application technique, failure of a paint job is guaranteed. But even with good prep and application technique, success such as you experienced is NEVER guaranteed. One factor that (probably) worked in you favor is working with a boat built of a resin/gelcoat system that is OK with the higher temps associated with dark colors. In this way, consider yourself lucky, as you did nothing to be blessed with such a resin and gelcoat; it came with your boat. This speaks well of the build quality of your boat as using cheap resin is one easy place to save $$$ in production.

Others owners will not be as lucky as you. That is why dark colors are risky; you will not know if your particular boat will be compatible until you paint it that color. I learned the hard way on my little Prindle cat. I painted it with Marlin Blue Awl-Grip (WAY lighter than Flag Blue) and hundreds of little bumps showed up in the year since. The summer daytime temps exceed what I can touch without a serious burn, so about 140-150F. Your Flag Blue looks almost black on my Awl-Grip chart, so I would expect 170F sumer daytime temps. Now I can repaint my little Prindle in a spare weekend for free with leftover paint and cat from a job. My risk and cost is minimal. The risk and cost is not going to be so minimal for everyone, though.

Jimbo

 

a VERY thick coat,, and prep'd right,, of primer will keep any of that happening. if the extreme heat gets past the primer ,, then you've done something wrong,, and your top coat should already be melted,,hehe

 

I did a deep sand on the original deeply faded gelcoat with 120 on a DA and then shot 2 heavy coats of the Awl-Grip yellow hi-build (hate that stuff but it was free ) right over. Then I blocked the whole thing down with a long rubber block and 80. After I got it all nice and straight I shot a thinner coat of HB and used 220 on a DA and shot the Maarlin Blue over that. I'm the 2nd owner and the boat had never been painted. So the problem has to be that the gelcoat (and prob'ly the resin too) just doesn't like 140-150F. It can't be the yellow hi-build and no previous paint jobs underneath. Gotta be the original gelcoat/resin. Prindle used crap resin, I guess. The bumps are a perfect replication of the cloth pattern. Now I know I can paint it any color I want as long as it's white It actually looks good-but only in the evenings

Jimbo