Setting/Checking Water Line and Painting

Columbia34 · Post by **Columbia34** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:57 am

Tim you talk about setting the water line with a transit? can you explain is I have one here at work, and would be interested in trying it. Do you have to level the boat some how? The edge of the bottom paint is what were are using assumiong it is right from the previous owner, but I would like to check it. Thanks

BTW: I tested my HVLP Showtime 90 on a golf cart body for a customer and the color turned out great nice even finish, with only about 30min of prep. I wish our boat would only take that long. Looking at doing all my painting between Christmas and New Years.

Scott

Post by **Tim** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 12:21 pm

Transits work as a relative measuring tool--that is, you set up and level the scope, and then use it to determine an arbitrary baseline measurement from somewhere using a large ruler, usually included with the transit, or a tape measure.

Then, without moving the transit, you can sight the scope anywhere and use the ruler to determine the offset (relative reading) compared to the baseline. You wouldn't have to level the boat to use it effectively. This is why transits are used to establish grades and other difficult comparitive measurements. With one scope setting, you can level anything that is within range.

Note that I have never done this. I've only observed the transit in use before by others (and never on a boat). But this is the basic idea.