The secret to any good boat coating is lots of light, lots of ventilation, proper working height, good walking paths, and being well organized. Actually following the instructions is helpful as well.
Here I’m working with the two-part polyurethane sold by skinboats.com. The product goes on wet on wet over the course of a day and then after that it’s completely done. No sanding, no recoating. This incredibly tough 100% solids coating will last about two years of extreme use, five years of hard use, 10 years of normal use, or even longer if you baby it.
Due to the fact that this cannot be sanded or recoated, it’s impossible to get the kind of glass smooth finishes that you can achieve with epoxy, but I have spent the last 20 years perfecting my application instructions to get the cleanest finishes possible and avoid disasters. (I do not recommend using the manufacturers instructions).
My biggest improvement over the last year was doing tests for all of the Earth pigments we sell and creating an accurate color palette to guarantee that your boat is actually going to end up the color you want. This year I’m gonna be adding to that color library by adding photos of the various colors on actual boats, and also covering one half of my color swatches, and then placing them in direct sunlight for 100 days so I can show the color change from UV degradation.
The new larger size LPB and F1 are looking nice. Tomorrow we put on the liquid keel strips (another recent innovation) then we can rig these on Tuesday and hopefully get some on the water photos to compare the saran wrap test with the actual boats. (they aren’t the same because the boat usually changes shape a little bit with the skinning).
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