NOTE: ANY DETAILS ON HOW I DID REPAIRS ARE MY OPINIONS. I WROTE DESCRIPTIONS HERE FOR ONE REASON, SO THAT I CAN REMIND MYSELF HOW I DID it.
This is our Cape Dory Typhoon hull number 731, it was kept in fresh water all of its life until we moved to Corpus Christi in 2009. We recently painted the boat with Interlux Perfection two part polyurethane paint and replaced all of the exterior wood with Honduras Mahogany. Our friends Bud and his wife Debbie did the wood work. Bud is a bit of a perfectionist and went above and beyond what I expected.
After repairing some dock rash with MAS epoxy I rolled and tipped on the paint. This method of putting on paint has been difficult for me to master but we ended up with a satisfactory finish eventually. It seems that thin is the key here. Mix the paint thin and put on thin coats. Also it is important to mix small portions of paint. I use less than a cup of paint at a time. If you mix too much paint it will start to kick before you can roll it all on. This means the tipping brush will start dragging in the thickened paint and the finish will look terrible. Roll on only enough paint that can be tipped in less than 30 seconds. Tip from new to old. In other words allow the paint you are tipping off to overlap paint already tipped or the brush will drag.
About the brush, I did not like using China Bristol or badger hair brushes as recommended. They require cleaning periodically to maintain a smooth finish. We used those cheap foam brushes that can be bought at paint stores. Tips with the foam brush and at the very first indication the brush is getting saturated with paint throw it away. Don’t be afraid to go thru a lot of brushes. I rolled the paint on with a foam roller
One last thing about tipping, don’t get excited when you look back and see streaks in what you had just tipped. Give the paint time to flow out. Roll and tip for a few minutes and then go back and look at what you have done.
We used Honduran Mahogany because of the high price of teak. You need to be patient when bending the rails to fit the hull. When Kerry and I re-did our Cape Dory 31’s wood work we found the thicker wood easer to work with. We used Butyl caulk under the rails. We also glassed in the old screw holes with epoxy and drilled new holes.
For the nonskid we mixed in Interlux non-skid additive with the paint and out of everything we did this went the easiest. We also used a flattener additive to the paint on the topside and it worked well.
