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Painting a 54' Donzi Sportfish

Discussion in 'General Yachting Discussion' started by DOCKMASTER, Dec 12, 2022.

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  1. DOCKMASTER

    DOCKMASTER Senior Member

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    My big winter project this year is painting the exterior of the boat. Just about everything gets painted except inside the flybridge area as that was recently done. So freeboard of hull, cockpit area, decks, house sides and front, pretty much everything exterior above the waterline. We are also correcting the waterline by lowering it up forward. The waterline was already too high even before I repowered and shed some weight off the boat. So the a/f is being sanded off in these areas in order to paint the freeboard down to a more appropriate place. We marked it before we hauled then shot the new old and new lines in with a laser to establish where it should be. Paint will be AwlCraft. I decided to stay with original colors for ease of maintenance and to minimize any issues from future scratches. The main color is Cream and the mask on the front of the house and around the windows is Flag Blue. I contemplated going more pure white so as not to age the boat but ultimately decided to embrace the vintage reality of my '94 hull and stay true to it. With virtually everything mechanical new, the paint should give me just about the newest '94 out there :):)
    The paint crew I hired showed up last week and they are off and running. These guys don't mess around. They are planning to spray first coats in a few days. They are working from the bottom up and we will build scaffolding for them as they go. This way they have clear walking surfaces but don't have any poles in their way as they work and spray. They expect about 6 weeks total for the job plus the additional time needed as they encounter areas that need more than just sand then paint.
    My other projects are new canvas in most areas, cockpit freezer door gasket upgrade, new dedicated generator starting battery and a few other misc items. Of course, full maintenance and fluid changes on everything is a given.

    Aft Bulkhead Masked.jpg Cockpit Masked.jpg Tackle station.jpg Stbd Waterline Change.jpg Port Waterline Change.jpg
    chesapeake46 and gr8trn like this.
  2. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

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  3. MBevins

    MBevins Senior Member

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    How much of the surface mounted stuff is being removed before painting?
  4. DOCKMASTER

    DOCKMASTER Senior Member

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    Everything we can get off without taking heroic action to remove it. Or, if we gain little by removing it and easier to just mask off.
  5. mapism

    mapism Senior Member

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    Sounds like this thread is going to be as interesting as your repowering one.
    Where's the thumbs up emoji when you need it??
    And yes, I'm sure she'll be the newest '94 anywhere on the planet, after this job!

    I'm just curious about the w/line: did the weight shed off with the repower raise more the bow than the stern?
    I would have thought that it was going to be neutral, if not even a bit more relevant astern...
    Last edited: Dec 13, 2022
  6. DOCKMASTER

    DOCKMASTER Senior Member

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    The waterline change was pretty even down the length. However, the waterline up forward has been too high since I bought the boat. No idea if it came from the factory this way or if somewhere over the years somebody changed it. You can see what I mean in this recent photo:

    upload_2022-12-12_21-30-6.jpeg
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  7. gr8trn

    gr8trn Senior Member

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    Way to go. The original color seems like a wise choice.
  8. Capt J

    Capt J Senior Member

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    The origional waterline is probably correct if someone had a 1000 lbs dinghy up there. Also I would leave it as you're then going to get into the spray rail part of the hull at the bow and you'll be constantly be repainting that area due to debris hitting it at slow speeds. Well, not constantly but every year or two if you use the boat often.
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  9. cleanslate

    cleanslate Senior Member

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    Holy cow, lol, I thought the job was done in this photo at first...she looks great as is. But I understand it's a photo which hides things in real time.
  10. MBevins

    MBevins Senior Member

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    I'm with J on this one, adjusting based on no dink on the bow might come back to bite you. I'm assuming you're leaving the crane and dink up there for the future.
  11. DOCKMASTER

    DOCKMASTER Senior Member

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    I do carry a dinghy on the bow. I’m in it taking the photo :):). It’s a 14’ RIB with Yamaha 50 hp. I’ve never weighed it, but likely in the 1k# range. I accounted for the weight of the dinghy and marked and measured with it on there. There is almost 12” of A/F above the waterline in the bow at full load. I’m lowering the waterline less than half of that so I should be good.
  12. DOCKMASTER

    DOCKMASTER Senior Member

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    Thanks!. The paint isn’t awful in most areas but it’s tired and has lost it’s luster. The worst area is the dark blue mask on the front of the house. That area is pretty bad. I had that painted about 7 years ago and it didn’t come out good. It now has several half dollar size areas where the fairing underneath failed and chipped off. Has lots of areas that are cracking and generally look terrible. The painter I used last time used the wrong fairing compound. So that will all be removed and renewed in a proper manner this time. The deck up forward also has several areas that no longer come clean. So generally just a nice freshen up is the main goal. Besides, I’m running out of other stuff to dream up to add and don’t have much else to replace anymore.
  13. mapism

    mapism Senior Member

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    Do you mean that she came all painted from the factory?
    I would have thought it's all gelcoat - aside from the blue mask, obviously.
    BTW, I would consider using the light cream colour also for the front part of that mask, while you are at it.
    No matter how well done, a surface exposed to sun like that is bound to deteriorate much faster with a very dark colour compared to a lighter one.
    Last edited: Dec 13, 2022
  14. DOCKMASTER

    DOCKMASTER Senior Member

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    No, it’s gelcoat from the factory.
  15. DOCKMASTER

    DOCKMASTER Senior Member

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    Progress is moving right along. The process for this is more involved than I was aware. They clean, wipe everything down, sand everything, then an initial guide coat followed by second sanding, then another guide coat and sanding, then 545 primer followed by 320 grit sanding , two coats of color and a final clear coat. Of course, any imperfections are filled and faired at each step along the way.

    The company I hired is World Yacht Refinishing - http://worldyachtrefinishing.com/ So far I have been very impressed by their work.

    As mentioned earlier, the FWD Mask was one of the worst areas on the boat. We decided to take this completely down to bare glass. This will get a whole new layer of glass followed by AwlFair and then into the painting sequence. The concern here was past repairs did not provide solid enough substrate and we needed new glass to ensure there is no future cracking or failures. We found several areas under the mask that had repairs either from previous owners or perhaps they were factory flaws from construction? No way to know what went on here but it will be better than new when we are done.


    FWD Deck Prep.jpg Port Freeboard Guide Coat.jpg STBD Mask Prep.jpg Port Mask Prep.jpg
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  16. DOCKMASTER

    DOCKMASTER Senior Member

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    Most of the hull freeboard areas are in the 545 primer now and almost ready for color coats:

    . STBD Aft Primer.jpg STBD Air Intake Primer.jpg Stbd Freeboard Primer.jpg STBD Bow Primer.jpg Port Freeboard Primer.jpg
  17. CaboFly

    CaboFly Member

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    Any new pics or updates?
  18. DOCKMASTER

    DOCKMASTER Senior Member

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    Lots of progress and I have more pics. Unfortunately I cannot easily reduce the picture size on my iPad and I’m not near a computer for awhile. Likely will be next week before I can edit and post. Of all the forums I’m on this is the only one that has such a limited photo size but it is what it is.
  19. YachtForums

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    In the early years, we had a disproportionate number of users on SatCom and bandwidth was expensive. As broadband access became less costly, we relaxed our image size mandates but then we got penalized by Google for pic heavy threads that take too long to download. Go figure, because any website that uses Google's ad network is sl0w as molasses!

    Me and our mods regularly reduce images to more manageable sizes to speed-up thread downloads, reduce bandwidth consumption and make viewing easier on a variety of devices.

    Sorry for the frustration!
  20. DOCKMASTER

    DOCKMASTER Senior Member

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    Thanks for reply and info. Sorry, my post wasn’t meant to indicate frustration. Just adds another step. I really like this forum so happy to oblige. With most of taking pics these days with phones and their cameras getting better and better all pictures require reducing to post. And whereas that’s pretty easy to do on a computer, neither iPhones or iPads make it easy to do without using an external app or at least I’ve never found another way.