We finally got a break from the roasting hot summer in the tent, so my painter showed up with a helper and covered the boat, taped off the mahogany toe rail, and sprayed what should have been the last coats of Imron MS1 clear coat.
Sharkskin plastic and a lot of 3M 233+ tape cover the boat
The (reportedly) good thing about MS1 clearcoat is that with eight coats sprayed in two sessions, it needs no maintenance for five years even in the brutally hot sun of southern Florida. Spraying can also produce a very flat surface with terrific shine. But it takes a lot of work to get ready to spray.
Sanded with 320 grit and ready for the final top coat
Ready to start spraying
Next day…looks pretty good
As I walked around the scaffolding, I noticed a lot of junk in the MS1. At the bow, I noticed that the painter hadn’t switched the air line to the filtered supply. There’s a small filter/bulk water separator before the refrigerated air drier. But I have a Tee in the air line, with a valve that controls air to two outlets, one of which has a big Devilbiss filter/drier. The filters are expensive, so we only use that side for painting. The other outlet is used for air tools and blowing things off. But even though I positioned the supply panel with the filter up on the scaffolding, the painter didn’t switch the supply to the filtered side. I’m pretty sure the little bits of junk in the MS1 came through the air line. There are also a few spots where the paint gun dripped. And I found four pinholes (roughly 1mm diameter) that appear to go all the way to the wood.
This is frustrating. It’s expensive to pay a professional crew to come in and spray. I can’t understand how they didn’t see the pinholes when they were sanding and taping off the toe rail. Swapping the air line is something the painter has done many times since we sprayed the boat with Awlgrip. He knows what he’s supposed to do, he just got careless and forgot. And now I’ve got junk in the clearcoat. The drips could be sanded and polished, but with the pinholes scattered around the toe rail, he’ll have to sand and spray once more.
It’s always something.
Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Back to the V-berth Cabinetry
1969chriscraftroamer46 
Really?? My God.. They should redo it for Free!! One may also think they would Filter their own Air..
Turn your Diamonds Over and Circulate some Blood throughout them..
I agree on the free part, but I’ve always supplied the compressor, lines and filters. If only they’d use ’em…
Cheers,
Q
If you get pinholes in autobodywork you can touch it up with these until it is proud and then flat and polish the area, might be worth a try if you have to pay for him to do it again…. http://www.ebay.com/itm/272069403975?rmvSB=true
Those are kinda neat! But I don’t know if they’d be able to force the MS1 down into the bottom of each pinhole. I’ll be using insulin needles to push it waaaaay down to the bottom.
Cheers,
Q