Bilge paint

Ask an Expert !
Do you have a question about any aspect of YM designed boats?

Moderators: Eventide Owners Group, Piskie, chris s

Post Reply
helenrose
Posts: 50
Joined: Tue October 31st, 2006, 2:25 pm
Location: uk

Bilge paint

Post by helenrose »

Hi, i am going to paint the bilges on my E 24,it looks like there is some sort of epoxy coating on at the moment and its starting to flake off the ply,what would be the best way to go about this?and what is the best paint to use?
Thanks,
Chris "Rose"
Billaboard
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu October 5th, 2006, 9:48 pm

Post by Billaboard »

This will probably be of no help, but on our Wild Duck that we built 25 years ago we painted over the epoxy coated ply in the bilge, and used a 2-part epoxy produced by a firm in Liverpool. It was white and was aimed at painting kitchen and hospital work surfaces, and acted as both primer and top coat. I think there were both varieties advertised but the word on the street was that there wasn't much difference between the two. We used primer as a top coat. This paint has been marvellous and shows no sign other than the odd place where it has worn through.

Over the last 2 seasons we have had a survey and I've painted the deck, replacing the Trakmark that was there before. I found someone who had worked as a technologist in the paint industry in Liverpool, who said that the company will have been taken over by "Jotun".

On the deck I used a grey 2-part Jotun epoxy primer with one of their decorative paints on top. So far that has been fine.

The survey found a small section of soft ply just above the waterline, so we have cut that out and replaced it. Again we used epoxy (West or SP systems) with the epoxy primer on top. It's very high build and any left in the container sets like a slightly flexible rock.

I bought the Jotun paint from a trade supplier in Birkenhead. They were fine, but were utterly hopeless with the colour mixing machine for the decorative paint. We had 4 goes and ended up with 2, 5 litre cans of paint in an unexpected colour. We used the pink on my refurbished trailer. The boat deck is a slightly off-orange, where we expected medium-brown, but I think it's unexpectedly attractive.

I feel I ought to know more about epoxy coatings. My understanding is that because they have a small molecule size, they reach in and bond with whatever they are applied to, so they shouldn't really be able to flake off if the underlying material is sound.

The paints I used seem to be aimed at the painting of bridges, cranes and similar structures. The supplier is in the industrial area beside the docks.
Post Reply