Anybody ever paint a boot stripe?

[alk]

have Been watching plenty of YouTube’s, and not making much sense to me how to layout a boot stripe. Apparently if you make the stripe a consistent width, it looks wrong when the boat is sitting in the water. But the jigs I’m seeing on YouTube are not really making any sense. can anyone explain the process to me? Thanks.

 

[Bruce Herrington]

I painted the stripe on my old 36 footer. I ran the tape slightly above the existing stripe and began painting.

If you have no existing stripe, maybe mark the waterline while boat is in water?

 

[Bruce Herrington]

Boot stripes keep you up at 3:12 am?

 

[alk]

You should check your profile time zone settings, posted at 10:12 pm. unfortunately the forum defaulted everyone to gmt time zone when we set this up. So unless you go in and change your settings to your local time, you will see all the times five hours ahead of edt.

marking the boat in the water seems to be the trick, but the boat isn‘t in the water - and I’m starting on the paint job. I know where to position the stripe, because I have the line where the bottom paint ends. Easy enough to start the stripe a couple inches up from there. The issue is around the height of the stripe. If you make it constant as the hull shape changes, it looks wrong. probably more of a sailboat problem, due to shape of the hull.

from one page I found that described the problem, but offered no solution “Vinyl boot stripe tape is available in different widths, colors, and designs, but unless the boat has a flat, slab side this will make the boat appear to sag or squat in the water. Painting the boot stripe on the hull allows the width to change with the geometry of the boat and give the finished stripe a uniform look.”

 

[PascalG]

I painted the stripe on my little sailboat when I built it. Is was tricky since I wasn’t 100% where the waterline would be... I got it right though. Line has the same width throughout.

I used a cheap laser thingy to Mark it. This is a picture where the stripe can be seen (zoom in). That was on launch day.

 

[WALSHIE]

To try and taper the stripe sounds like a nightmare. You might want to use a skinnier stripe instead.

 

[Radioactive]

---> Pascal

If you look at the pic very quickly, you might not see the truck...

 

[Brian N]

---> Pascal

If you look at the pic very quickly, you might not see the truck...

Yup...my first thought was "Damn, he's towing that with the Alfa?"

 

[rwidman2]

I never painted one, but I replaced the tape boot stripe on my trawler when it was out of the water for other reasons. It's not as easy as it might seem. Someone later asked me who did it and I told him "Stevie Wonder".

In the water it doesn't look bad, but up close it's hard to keep that tape straight.

 

[alk]

I was thinking maybe tape, but not sure. Does the tape hold up, or start peeling away after a couple years in the water?

 

[rwidman2]

I was thinking maybe tape, but not sure. Does the tape hold up, or start peeling away after a couple years in the water?

The tape I replaced was original and over fifteen years old. The replacement tape has held up so far.

 

[Gregory S]

Alk, do yourself a favor and get rid of the tape and paint the stripe on with Awlgrip. I removed mine several years ago and had the yard paint a new stripe. It's the same width all the way. The masked it, roughed the glass, primed and then painted alwlgrip. looks great and lasts without chipping or peeling.

 

[alk]

I’m using Alexseal to paint the hull, somewhat similar to awlgrip, but a bit more diy friendly ( and a little cheaper).

. I’ll try to get some pictures, but due to the shape of the hull, especially near the transom where it flattens out right above the waterline, it won’t look right if it’s the same width all the way. The goal is to have the stripe the same height , but as the angle flattens, you need to increase the width in order to keep the height consistent. I did not understand this at first, but looking at the hull last night it finally made sense to me.

at the middle of the boat, where the hull is nearly vertical - for the top of the stripe to be an inch higher from the bottom ( as measured from the waterline) the stripe needs to be an inch wide. But back at the transom, where the hull flattens out, in order for the stripe to be an inch high, it needs to be nearly five inches wide.