Shifting gears

I've been happy with the oil-based paint going on Thomas' boat. Notes for posterity: the Penetrol does enhance paint flow and extends the cure time, but it somewhat dulls the gloss of the paint. It's great for help to keep the paint flat and reduce brush strokes, but it won't be in the last coat or so. I'll thin the paint with thinner instead.

Spent some time early this morning (5:30-6:30AM) before the family got up wet sanding the boat with 220 to flatten out the brush strokes and the edges of the roll & tip joins. It is now ready to spray and I hope I get the kind of finish I anticipate. If all goes well this boat should be about as good as you can get in a garage build without a spray booth. I'm going to prep the side panels of the cockpit later today with primer so they can be sprayed as well at the same time. They aren't attached to the boat permanently yet, so I'll spray them before they get epoxied in place. I'll protect the gluing edge with tape so I'm not epoxying a painted surface.

I was able to get good (but not spectacular) results with the roll & tip technique, but not as good as you can with spray. The paint I'm using has a little bit too much drag on the brush. I imagine I could get it a little better if I thinned the paint a little and really concentrated on low brush pressure when tipping the roll back into the wet edge. I'd also have to keep moving the wet edge location between coats. So far it has hit in around the same place each coat, making a little thicker area that needed to be sanded down.