The paint is on! I began the finishing process (applying filler, paint, and varnish) by brushing on some two-part epoxy filler below the waterline. I'm using Interlux Primekote 404/414 . Great stuff, but extremely smelly! Pretty expensive too. But it sands down wonderfully. It fills all the deep scratches and pits and such. The filler goes on pretty thick, but you end up sanding most of it off. Keep in mind that I'm only putting it where paint will go. The topsides will stay natural. The pictures below are after sanding the filler off.  It may look rough, but it's actually just filled the scratches and other low spots. It feels very smooth now. Then I masked the boat. I'm making an accent stripe at the waterline. There will be one thin line of clear wood, and then another thin line of white above the waterline. Next I mixed up some two-part Klass Kote epoxy paint. The first coat was clear. It's really only to act as a "bleed" coat...

Today I did the first coat of thinned varnish on the hull. Over the past four days, I've let the hull cure and harden. It then sanded quite easily. For the most part, I didn't completely remove the orange peel but just flattened it a bit. The varnish should take care of the rest of it after 5 or 6 coats. Then wiped it down with mineral spirits. I'm using Pettit's Z-Spar Captain's Ultra-Clear Varnish . The can says that thinning usually isn't needed, but I added some mineral spirits regardless. Will probably do so for the first two or three coats. While I've always claimed that varnishing is a dark art practiced by masochists, it does have it's benefits. It can hide a ton of flaws; scratches, slight orange peel, etc... Once it's built up, it can look fantastic. I'm part of the "roll and tip" school of thought for varnish. The idea is that you use a small, 4" disposable foam roller to roll on a thin coat, then you go back o...

Today the "tile red" went on! It looks good... at least the color looks good. The orange peel, not so much. It started off well. I masked and prepped the hull, and then sprayed on a light coat of clear so that it would bleed into the tape edges and not show. Then I sprayed on the first few coats of the red. But then, on the LAST coat, I neglected to put the lid on the gravity paint cup and while spraying up under the bulb managed to drizzle paint all over the port side!!! God!!! I gently wiped it up as best I could, and then sprayed on two more pretty heavy coats hoping that it would all blend in. It didn't. Shit. Now I'm committed to sanding and spraying on more coats of clear over the whole thing. That's not necessarily bad, but I'm sure that I'll always be able to see the mess. Can you see it? It looks of slop... F@#&!!!! Oh well... I'll keep working on it. However, when I took the masking tape off, the rest of the hu...

Wasn't able to post last night, but sprayed on my first coat of clear epoxy. I'm using a new, gravity feed spray gun that I picked up at Harbor Freight for $14. It works pretty well, although you really need to run reducer through it or it will seize up within minutes of stopping spraying. Pretty easy. Just sprayed on the entire hull, but especially on the topsides. Only did two thin coats... just enough to start to cover the hull. Didn't even need to mask anything.   Today, I re-marked the waterline as it dissolved when I wiped the hull with reducer yesterday. After that, I masked the topsides at the waterline. Had to use a hobby knife at the sharp turns near the stern. Then I sprayed on one thin coat of clear. The idea here is that you spray on the same color that is underneath the tape so that the bleed is the same color and you don't see it. Finally, I sprayed on several coats of white from the waterline just about an inch or two toward the...