Abandon hope, all ye who enter ....

I've lost faith in latex. I'll reserve it's use for protecting protruding body parts while applying epoxy and during other dangerous activities where bodily harm may result from inappropriate contact.

Maybe it was my brief use of the nap roller (see red paint rule #10), but I just can't live with what the latex paint is doing to Thomas' boat. Latex may look great on an accent wall, garage door or window trim, but it looks like crap on a boat. And it is easily marred and scratched.

I've been hemming and hawing about the latex paint for days. It has tested my faith and I now have to sand it all off (five coats) and start over. With oil based paint. I'll prime with a good primer and then make sure there is a final dark gray coat of primer before I start with the Senator's red. It has to be done right. I didn't want to go to all this effort, and a less obstinate person would just prime on top of the latex and get on with it. I'm pigheaded and it doesn't matter to me that I look like an idiot.

This exercise is a great demonstration on why you have to take stuff on the Internet with a grain of salt. The arguments posted FOR latex paint included advocates like Harold "Dynamite" Payson, Phil Bolger and many others. Some of these guys are card carrying and/or honorary members of the Loyal Order of Cantankerous Maine Boat Builders! Latex may be good enough for a rowing skiff or a gunkholing tender, but it sure isn't good enough for me.

You should have seen Thomas' face when he walked around the corner from the school bus this afternoon and saw me longboarding the Senator's red latex off the bottom of his boat. I told him the crappy paint wasn't good enough for him, and I was going to fix it. He said, "That's good Dad - go for it. I'm going to go have a snack." He knows me well enough to tolerate and humor my obsessive nature.

I really wanted to stick with the environmentally & kid friendly latex paint as part of the goal of making this parent/kid work project. I guess that just like my use of epoxy, my desire for long lasting quality trumps my ability to follow the project plan.

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Bill