> Has anybody actually added glass on a hull after it was painted? I'd be a
> little concerned about getting a good bond. It'd be hard to sand all the
> paint off without taking out the existing glass, too. Would epoxy/glass
> bond over Pettit Easypoxy, or Interlux's similar product?

After all the sanding and fairing, there is a pretty good layer of nice smooth plastic resin, burying the glass cloth, which serves as a base for whatever finish is later applied, whether it be a deeply pigmented paint or a clear varnish. These can be usually be removed cheically with solvents that attack the finish, but are not damaging ot cured epoxy. The actual solvent used would depend on the materials used.

Or, you can use abrasion. (That's a fancy word for sanding. I figure if I call it by a fancy name it won`t seem so much like work when I have to spend a few hours at it. As soon as I learn how to say `Sanding' in Latin and Greek I'll consider myself cultured, too!)

Either way, I think paint is easier to remove because you can see where it was. When the color is gone, so is the paint, so you move on to another area.

Now, after all that is said and done there remains a basic question: Why did the hull get painted in the first place?

Personally, I advocate paddling the boat for a while before putting on the finish coat. This is obviously not a possibility with a store-bought boat, or for custom boat builders. Both of these groups must deliver completely finished products. For those of us who build our own boats this is just not a necessity.

Consider these advantages: Your boat is on the water days earlier. You can see where the real waterline will be when the craft is loaded ( a nice thing to know if using a separate paint color for the hull) Additions, corrections and modifications are easier to add to the epoxy base ( no paint/varnish removal, just a light sanding.) The immersion will help in removing amine blush. Any scratches will point out areas that need additional or thicker layers of fiberglass fabric.

For the most part, the stitch and glue boats I've read or heard about use a couple coats of epoxy resin to seal the wood and provide a base for paint. This should protect the wood for a while as you do your `test` paddling. Don't set out in a boat with uncovered wood. If the plans call for paint instead of resin as a base coat,then get and use paint.

Hope this helps.

Paul G. Jacobson

There are some concerns about paddling in a boat that looks ugly because it has bewen sanded, but not varnished. You can avoid this situation with another time saving tip: Don't sand the final coat of epoxy until the time you want to put on the finish coats. After a few months it will have some scratches in it, which should come out with a light sanding that takes off about as much as you would take off for a finishing job, anyway. Any deeper gouges or scrapes would need to be patched -- and those patches would need to be eventually painted over, or varnished over, to match the rest of the boat. Instead of just finishing the patches in the Autumn, you do the whole boat.

Hope this helps.

Paul G. Jacobson