I suspect the problem is that most pigments aren't designed to create opacity, they're designed to, well, create a pigmented color. I suspect the color particles are too fine to provide good light blocking opacity.

Glass microballoons are amazing for creating opacity. I tried using a large quantity of copy toner when making my black hatch lips, but it ended up a deep, translucent black. By adding a very small quantity of glass balloons, it ended up a deep, opaque jet black.

I used this as a gelcoat on my hatches and laid my glass in it. I'm not too sure all those microballoons would be very good in a wet-out coat--you'd get a mixture that was too "coarse" to adequately wet out your glass.

Shawn

: I used west systems white pigment in fill coats for the bottom interior of a
: kayak. It wasn't perfect but only required one coat of polyurethane paint
: for complete coverage. I think it's worth doing for white, not sure about
: other colors or pigments. Tried using yellow pigment from a gel coat set
: but it was very translucent. I'm going to do it on the next kayak for the
: hull bottom as a base coat before painting.