Painting the Interior

As I mentioned earlier, Ronin was in pretty rough shape and that certainly extended to the interior. Over the years, small leaks, teak oil refinishing that spread onto the liner and just general grime took it’s toll. Given that I was embarked on a major refit I decided to brighten up the insides.

I ordered the supplies that I would need from Jamestown Distributors. I used Interlux Perfection Two-Part Polyurethane in Off White along with the Two-Part Flattening agent. I bought masking paper and 3M Masking Film in bulk. I already had a set of bristle brushes which I planned on using.

While I was waiting for the materials to show up I went through the entire cabin and filled in any dings, scratches or old drill holes with epoxy. Did some fairing and sanding and called the job done.

The boat was mostly stripped so cleaning and taping went fairly quickly. I made notes as I was doing this because there are areas of interior liner that I am planning on painting with Awlcraft when I paint the decks. Those areas are the smooth, non-stippled areas around the hatches and the companionway. I completely solvent washed all the surfaces that would be getting the paint and finished up covering and taping the interior. I left notes were needed because I forget many things...

I’ve spayed many racing bottoms and was comfortable with that method but for some reason I came to the conclusion that I would brush on the interior. I started in a test area and immediately realized it was a mistake. Brush strokes. Something I just couldn’t deal with. So I quit for the day.

I already had a new spray gun and equipment for some smaller boat projects but my Makita shop compressor didn’t come close to CFM for a decent spray job. Off to my brother’s to borrow his larger but still not “quite” up to requirements compressor for a lot of open trigger work. I knew that I would be painting small, discreet sections of the interior so that cycling would be moderate.

I went ahead and got things set up at the boat. Put the compressor on the dock and set up the prep table. Cheap window fans in the two overhead hatches. Already had a new respirator but put all new filters and cartridges on and checked for leaks. Good to go.

The process started out fairly well but the full-sized gun I was using was pulling too much air. I switched over to the smaller detail gun that I had and that was perfect. Easy to get into smaller areas and it had enough of a fan to not slow the job down. Actually worked out well because I would work a section and then stop to let the cabin clear of spray. The whole job of actually painting the interior only took around an hour or so.

Anyway, after stripping the masking paper and pulling the tape, it was a job well worth the effort.

Makes the interior much more pleasant.  I have new overhead panels in white that will be put up so the color matching will be nice.