thebrushand
06-09-2008, 11:59 AM
Hi, thanks to the lovely Lilou, my better half, I just joined the forum. She is big on wooden boats, and since being on the hard for a couple of months, restoring what looked like such a small Angelman ketch, I am hooked too.
I am a traditional time-served master painter from the UK, now in California, and I have to say, I am really thrilled to be in an environment where wet 'n dry and oil paint and tack rags are all the rage. Such a contrast to the rest of the painting scene I have encountered in sprayed latex America.
Not bragging or anything, but from a professional point of view, I have done it all as far as prepping and painting all surfaces in every conceivable land lubber work environment, but this foray into wooden boat painting has been interesting, shocking and inspiring.
Interesting because I have never encountered marine paints before, so i am back at square one with the research into specs and what you are trying to achieve with the coatings and fillers etc. It is also interesting, because, not wishing to be indelicate, but just like the normal construction world, advice and opinions abound. I admit i am not fully conversant with marine stuff, but I am sure many basic principles for paint and fillers hold true, regardless of whether it is for land or sea. So I am finding that there is a lot of opinion and advice coming my way from boatwrights and rigging contractors and passing admirers here on the yard, as well as stuff on the internet that makes me scratch my head and wonder what I am missing. I guess I will try and seek out specialist painters for info?
This boat restoration has also been shocking, because they seem to pack so much wood into these bloody things. To my untrained eye, the hull initially looked to me like a couple of walls and a sticky out bit at the front. But when you get into it, there is miles of timber, and it is all at funny angles, and the scaffolding has to be at all weird angles and heights...
It is the first time I have ever burnt off wood down to the bare for 6 days straight. Normally, 6 days burning off for a house painter would been enough time to strip all the windows on a couple of normal houses. Very unusual to have that much to do. And then there is reefing out miles of seams. If I used a hacking knife and a hammer, the equivalent of a reefing tool and a mallet, I could probably chip the putty out of the rebates of a hundred window frames. Never done 100 frames before in one sitting!
And it is inspiring because as I said, here in America, all I have ever encountered so far are spraying latex high speed whack em out fast painters, and that style of work does absolutely nothing for me. Now I am in the wooden boat world, I can see that wooden boats deserve the standard of oil paint work normally reserved for millionaire clients back home. Most cool.
Anyway, enough of me. After years working on UK sites, you hear a lot of cliches and one liners. Have you got any I can throw back at the contractors here in California?
For instance, My user name is the brush hand, which in the UK is a derogatory term for guys who walk off the street, pick up a brush , put on a pair of white overalls and call themselves painters.
Another couple of examples of taking the p*** out of UK painters' workmanship - that gloss finish has more runs than Ian Botham (He is to cricket what Babe Ruth is to baseball, I think)
That finish looks good - to a blindman on a galloping horse on a dark night, going in the opposite direction.
cheers
I am a traditional time-served master painter from the UK, now in California, and I have to say, I am really thrilled to be in an environment where wet 'n dry and oil paint and tack rags are all the rage. Such a contrast to the rest of the painting scene I have encountered in sprayed latex America.
Not bragging or anything, but from a professional point of view, I have done it all as far as prepping and painting all surfaces in every conceivable land lubber work environment, but this foray into wooden boat painting has been interesting, shocking and inspiring.
Interesting because I have never encountered marine paints before, so i am back at square one with the research into specs and what you are trying to achieve with the coatings and fillers etc. It is also interesting, because, not wishing to be indelicate, but just like the normal construction world, advice and opinions abound. I admit i am not fully conversant with marine stuff, but I am sure many basic principles for paint and fillers hold true, regardless of whether it is for land or sea. So I am finding that there is a lot of opinion and advice coming my way from boatwrights and rigging contractors and passing admirers here on the yard, as well as stuff on the internet that makes me scratch my head and wonder what I am missing. I guess I will try and seek out specialist painters for info?
This boat restoration has also been shocking, because they seem to pack so much wood into these bloody things. To my untrained eye, the hull initially looked to me like a couple of walls and a sticky out bit at the front. But when you get into it, there is miles of timber, and it is all at funny angles, and the scaffolding has to be at all weird angles and heights...
It is the first time I have ever burnt off wood down to the bare for 6 days straight. Normally, 6 days burning off for a house painter would been enough time to strip all the windows on a couple of normal houses. Very unusual to have that much to do. And then there is reefing out miles of seams. If I used a hacking knife and a hammer, the equivalent of a reefing tool and a mallet, I could probably chip the putty out of the rebates of a hundred window frames. Never done 100 frames before in one sitting!
And it is inspiring because as I said, here in America, all I have ever encountered so far are spraying latex high speed whack em out fast painters, and that style of work does absolutely nothing for me. Now I am in the wooden boat world, I can see that wooden boats deserve the standard of oil paint work normally reserved for millionaire clients back home. Most cool.
Anyway, enough of me. After years working on UK sites, you hear a lot of cliches and one liners. Have you got any I can throw back at the contractors here in California?
For instance, My user name is the brush hand, which in the UK is a derogatory term for guys who walk off the street, pick up a brush , put on a pair of white overalls and call themselves painters.
Another couple of examples of taking the p*** out of UK painters' workmanship - that gloss finish has more runs than Ian Botham (He is to cricket what Babe Ruth is to baseball, I think)
That finish looks good - to a blindman on a galloping horse on a dark night, going in the opposite direction.
cheers