Ablative bottom paint

Gregory S

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Jan 1, 2000
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2620
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My hull was blasted last year followed by 5 coats of barrier coat, then 2 coats of hard paint. I'd like to switch to an ablative paint this year. What do you recommend for the lower Chesapeake Bay?
 
I use Pettit Hydrocoat.
It is water based.
Goes on nice and seems to hold up well.
All new Regals and Searays come with this.
 
Thanks Dave. I was looking at Hydrocoat this morning at Worst Marine. Didn't know anyone that used it.
 
For many years I used waterbased AQUAGARD black bottom paint that I got a very good price as they were a customer of mine. I also used their clear spray on "ALL" my running gear including trim tabs.
 
Greg,
I'm at ur point for this fall. What were the damages ? Did they strip in fall and paint in spring ?

Rob
 
quote:

Originally posted by Robski97

Greg,
I'm at ur point for this fall. What were the damages ? Did they strip in fall and paint in spring ?

Rob






I negotiated with the dealer to have the bottom of my 410 blasted, re-barrier coated, and two coats of ablative applied as a condition of sale before I closed on the boat.
They weren’t happy about it because they claimed the job had a retail value of $5,000.00, but they ultimately caved and did it.
I think they were inflating their cost a bit for the sake of negotiating, but you can probably use that number as a rough guide.
They had an outside company strip it on a warm early January day, left it that way until mid April, and then they did the barrier coat and ablative paint process before delivery a few weeks later.
Paint looked really good at the haulout last fall with no flaking or bald spots on the hull at all. The only place it flaked was on the tabs which was likely do to them not prepping the smooth stainless before painting them.
 
Rob, was very close to $4500. They blasted in the fall and she sat all winter. They faired the hull a couple times. Once before the first barrier coat, sanded, another barrier coat, then faired, sanded and then 3 more barrier coats before 2 coats of hard paint. The bottom looked very good at haulout this year after power washing. No spots of bad adhesion. I was getting to the point that rolling new paint on was picking up and off the old.
 
Greg,
Ditto to the paint Dave (Current Sea) uses. Since you are at a fresh start, I recommend your first paint on the bottom should be a different color than you would normally like. Then your second year, paint the bottom the color you like. The third year, just touch up where you see the first year color coming through. With my 45c, I just touch up now, based on that formula, I should never have to blast the bottom.
 
To do the signal coat properly you should paint like a orange, then a black over it.
If you wait a year in between it will fall apart and the second coat won't stick as well.
When i did signal coat, I used orange, then black and it was great, but it is an expensive first step since it usually requires alot more paint.
 
Pretty sure my yard uses Hydrocoat also. My yard give you a choice of colors, so long as it's black. I'm in a shallow warm harbor and we get both hard shell (barnacles and mussels) and soft growth (slime, moss junk). It seems to work well.

I had my boat's bottom blasted this past March and am in the process of repairing some small pits in the gelcoat and applying Interprotect 2000e barrier coat. I'm doing the touchup and epoxy work, so that's my time. The cost for wet glass blasting my 27 ft/8.5 ft beam was $1200. I called around to places that service Long Island and that was the going rate with some quoting much higher. I used Restora Blast (based in West Babylon). They did a good job, would use them again.

FYI, if you haven't been to West Marine in a while they have a relatively new price matching policy. Show them a lower price from somewhere else and they will match it (sale, or regular price). I saved a bunch already in 2 transactions; nearly $100 just for the Interprotect. According to the cashier, WM is logging where customers are cross shopping and the discounts so they can lower prices across the board to be more competitive. That kind of answered my question of "why not just lower your prices?"
 
I don't understand the concept of so-called multi-season ablative paint if you have to hurry and put the boat in the water between 2 and 30 days after you paint it and then by season end your taking the boat out of the water for 180 days, wouldn't that deactivate the paint and render it useless?
 
quote:

Originally posted by pstew96

I don't understand the concept of so-called multi-season ablative paint if you have to hurry and put the boat in the water between 2 and 30 days after you paint it and then by season end your taking the boat out of the water for 180 days, wouldn't that deactivate the paint and render it useless?






We used West marine multi-season paints for more that 20 years with great results. These paints do not have a max air time with land storage and you can add coats when you do paint to cover for the years that you do not paint. We also used the equivalent Pettit product when the pricing was about the same.
Mostly used in heavy foul areas of LI sound.
 
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