April 8, 2011
This should be a post about how awesome it is that my boat came up pretty nice with a little elbow grease. About how great it was that I was able to get electricity, how quickly I was able to put on the VC17 (bought on sale!) on a cool, windless, quiet afternoon as the fog rolled in off the lake…. instead I’m chastising myself for my foolishness at thinking I can get away with shortcuts. You see, I know better.
With launch only a few weeks away (I seem to be the only one working away frantically – I guess everyone else is leaving it to the weekend before) and given my Tanzer 7.5 sat on the hard for two years, it was time to tackle the chalky mess of a hull and refresh the mangy bottom coat. Luckily, with two extension cords I was able to plug in my polisher and gave the hull a polish and wax.
Mistake #1
When buying my compound and wax – in a moment of weakness I succumbed to a 2-in1 compound/wax from 3M. Hey I thought, why buff the boat twice when once will do? Seems reasonable right? I did a small test on the topside and it looked pretty good. I soon discovered that the red paint would tint the wax and my white hull was a splotchy pinkish white, so my one turned into a three step instead of two step. 1)Polish, 2)wash with spray nine to remove pink wax, then 3)polish with wax. I also ended up using two separate buffing pads for the waxing to avoid pink smears.
Mistake #2
As Aida is on Lake Ontario, a fresh coat of VC17 anti-fouling paint was in order. I’ll skip the annoyance of just finishing the can and still having 4 patches and a rudder left to paint…. my mistake was not masking off the white strip between the bootstripe and the waterline. In a moment of foolish bravado – I figured I could just wipe off the over-paint with some solvent – after all VC17 is thin and light. Well that part I was right about, it easily comes off – but to my horror it stained the gelcoat bright pink!
The moral of the story…. my gelcoat is wants to be pink? No. Don’t listen to that voice in you head that tries to convince you that shortcuts are a good idea.