Deck work & new toe/rubrails

[bhartley]

Tim,

Is there a reason you put your new rails on BEFORE painting the deck on Glissando? My little Ty is making slow but steady progress towards having the deck complete and I had planned to prime and paint the deck (and topsides) before applying the new toe & rubrails - UNTIL I saw you had done it in the reverse order...

Thanks in advance,

Bly

[Tim]

Yes--to avoid the chance of damaging a fresh new paint job during installation. Handling long pieces of lumber can be a bit unweildy, so I chose to get the work out of the way before painting.

My own philosophy is to leave the finish paint coats till as late in the process as possible, to keep them as fresh as possible. I've seen an awful lot of projects that were painted too early, only to sit for years while the remainder of the project gets completed (or not, in some cases), or that risk damage during subsequent work. While painting is the most immediately satisfying part of a project (which is why many choose to do it early on), the best results come when the paint is applied late--or at least that's what I think.

When I built the daysailor, though, I installed the rails after the hull was painted, but before the deck paint (though it was primed). But this was really because I originally planned a different sort of toerail, and changed the plan along the way. I still favor getting the heavy woodwork out of the way before final coats of paint.