What do I paint marine ply with?

demonboy

demonboy

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Just repairing our old Tinker, which we purchased the other week, and I wanted to know what type of paint I use to treat the flat-bottomed marine-ply panels with. Two-pack? Epoxy-based? Normal gloss? Water-colours?

Any tips on preserving the life of the wood muchos appreciated. Ta.
 
Seal the edges against moisture ingress; epoxy is widely recommended for that. Paint or varnish the panels with good quality varnish or with primer and a couple of coats of something tough and waterproof. Bilge paint would be OK, so would deck paint and it comes in a greater range of colours. I think watercolours or silk finish emulsion are probably not very suitable.
 
Epoxy the panels, all over, especially the edges and use any good quality external paint, wipe over the epoxy with meths, before the paint, to remove the wax that is produced during curing and key wiv sandpaper. I used any old paint left in the paint locker, but two pack would be great, if you have any lying about, if not I have some Liz can collect!!
 
These are bottom boards for an inflatable?
A proper job of varnishing should be fine, it will be a lot cheaper than epoxy, which still has to be protected from UV.
Maybe epoxy the end grain if it tends to take some wear?
Whatever you use, even epoxy won't last forever if permanently wet.
 
Any good exterior gloss will do the job and will be much easier to repair when you scrape it..........and you will.

I nearly always advocate Dulux Weathershield for wood work but it is too soft for this type of job choose B&Q best /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif or something similar

Epoxy all edges and prime well.

Tom
 
Has to be oil based ... or resin. Forget Weathershield and similar - too soft.

If boards for inflatable - then last lot I made early this year were coated in numerous coats of varnish especially at ends to seal laminates exposed ends. End of season - and mine stayed in with sun, rain, sh**e and still look like new ......
 
when i boxed in the aft locker i used a two pack primer light resin primer. even when mixed it was very thin and was "sucked "up by the ply. took about an hour to go off. i tested a bit on an off cut and when sawed through it appeared to have penertrated the ply to about 2mm. If I were building or repairing a hull i think this would be the way to go to help improve the waterproof quality of the wood. I overcoated with toplac.. looked great once completed.
 
Only problem with some resin based is that they can produce a brittle or less forgiving product. Most thin ply items on a boat and hulls of dinghys etc. need to have a touch of flex in them. Resins can remove that.
 
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