Penetrol in Brightside?

[keelbolts]

I'm going to help a friend of mine paint his plastic boat within the next week. The boat was previously painted, apparently with a spoon, and, for a variety of reasons we'll be using Interlux Brightside. For several years now I have used Penetrol to thin Z-Spar 99 enamel with excellent results. Reading back in some old posts in this forum, I found a reference to using Penetrol with one-part polys such as Brightside or Easypoxy. Is Penetrol compatible with Easypoxy?

[Hirilondë]

http://www.pettitpaint.com/fileshare/pr ... 310208.pdf

It might work, but Pettit recommends their own products. For old fashion oil based products Penetrol works well, but with today's modern chemistry I am not so sure I would experiment.

[CharlieJ]

I fI recall correctly, there are two different thinners Pettit uses with Brightsides- one for spraying and one for rolling ( or brushing)


333 is for brushing, 216 for spraying.


I'd stick with the Pettit stuff. I don't often find much need to thin Brightsides though. It's pretty thin as it comes- sometimes way too thin.

Needs THIN coats or it'll sag and run on you.

[keelbolts]

I didn't think you could use it in polys, but I saw a post from a forumite who did. I went to the Flood site & it says Penetrol is for oil and alkyd based paints. Thanks for the replies gents.

[Jason K]

Brightsides is an Interlux product. I strongly advice against using Penetrol with it. Interlux is very specific about which solvents to use with which paint system and, as an LPU, following the manufacturer's instructions is key. Plus, it goes on very thin - I can't see the benefit of using Penetrol or any other solvent.

[LazyGuy]

I painted my Sea Sprite topsides three times. Once with Petit and twice with Brightsides. I used the appropriate thinner for each and Penetrol. I had excellent results each time. Penetrol does not thin the paint, it just helps it to flow out better. I have also found that if you paint right out of the can, it looks like it was painted. If you thin it and add Penetrol, it will look like fiberglass.

JMHO
Dennis

[keelbolts]

Well, I did it. I added Penetrol to Brightside. Several people I talked to said they used it with good results and no problems. The learning curve on this, my first plastic boat topsides job, was steeper than I had expected. My wife & I have been painting wooden boats each year for almost 20 years. Often we painted 2 or 3 in a season. This year's job, painting a Catalina 22, may have been the hardest yet. We could not get the paint smooth! Mind you, most people are surprised to find that Favona's topsides are African mahogany and Z-Spar 99 only. A number wouldn't believe she was wood, at all, until they went below. We used Brightsides and 2 or 3 techniques and couldn't get a finish we wanted our name associated with. We rolled and tipped with a 7" roller & 3" foam brush (what we've done for years with excellent results) - brush strokes. We rolled and didn't tip with a little "hot dog" roller (recommended by two professional painters) - smoother, but not glossy. Rolled and tipped with a 7" roller and bristle brush (thought maybe foam brushes don't work as well w/ poly as w/ enamel) - more brush strokes. And, finally, rolled and tipped with a 7" roller, a 3" foam brush, and Penetrol - passable. The only excuse I could come up with is that we were painting this boat Fire Red. At least one of the guys who came by to offer their comments, a professional boat painter, said he charges more to paint a boat red. In the end, the brightest spot in this process was that we got to experiment on somebody else's plastic boat before we do ours.

I'll let you know what, if any, effect the Penetrol has on the one-part poly paint.

LazyGuy, I wish you'd take that line "Life is too short to own an ugly boat" out of your signature. It hits too close to home. I always agreed with that sentiment, but, no matter how I close one eye & squint the other, I have been unable to convince myself that my Westerly isn't more than just a little homely.

[LazyGuy]

Jeff,

Yes, the Westerly is a bit "Duckie" it looks like a 23 foot boat with the trunk cabin from a 32 footer. A quick search came up with a Robert Clark 33. I don't know how close your 32 is to the 33 but that is a damn fine looking boat. My hunch is that the difference between the 32 and the 33 is subtle.

A friend tells a great story about Jack who built boats in his front yard in Noank. He was supposed to build his son a 28 foot sailboat but ended up building a 32 foot sailboat because the piece of oak they delivered for the keel was so beautiful he couldn't cut it.

Both of my sailboats have been as easy on the eye as they are on the tiller. I thought about revising my signature to "Life is too short to own more then one ugly boat" but it seems to loose something.

[keelbolts]

LazyGuy,
Thanks for your generous description of the Westerly as duckie. Duckies are, at least, cute. We actually considered, briefly, the name Ducky because we also thot she looked a bit ducky. In truth, I don't think she is noticeably homelier than most of the new plastic boats seen in marinas today; it's just that my previous boats, a Folkboat and Favona, are hard acts to follow. You can see Favona in the photos section on this site. She has the boxy cabin typical of classic British boats, but a very nice hull shape. In terms of practicality, in my homewaters, the Westerly is a quantum leap ahead of Favona. I expect the next cruising season to be instrumental to my deciding if my relationship with the Westerly is to be a long term one. If she's as easy to get along with as I expect her to be, I hope my love for her will blind me to her flaws in the same way that a love for a less than stunning significant other makes them more physically attractive to us.