Costs to paint

Comodave said:

Maybe a lot of people don’t like the way it looks??? I don’t want my pleasure boat looking like that.

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No problem, $25k or more every few years.

BruceK said:

Wonder if heavy duty aluminum cooking foil would work Maybe Mr. Wellington, unpainted aluminum enthusiast, knows a good source in wide sheet form. Shiny or dull side out?

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No, but I know of a lot of builders who make beautiful , strong alu boats.

JWellington said:

No problem, $25k or more every few years.

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No, here a good paint job will go 15+ years.

Comodave said:

No, here a good paint job will go 15+ years.

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As we watch you chip and sand and paint all that rust.........continually.

Simi 60 said:

I gathered that but still seems a lot of coin.
Out of interest, what does a timber house cost to paint?

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Earlier this year I had my concrete/stucco house painted in prep to sell. Prep was power wash and caulking in some areas. 1500 sf main house, 1000 sf in law suite, a 500 sf standalone office, and about 150 feet of 6 foot high wall. Was about $9k usd. Prep and materials were a fraction of the work to paint my 36 foot boat which was $25k in Mexico.

Apples and oranges

Peter

mvweebles said:

Earlier this year I had my concrete/stucco house painted in prep to sell. Prep was power wash and caulking in some areas. 1500 sf main house, 1000 sf in law suite, a 500 sf standalone office, and about 150 feet of 6 foot high wall. Was about $9k usd. Prep and materials were a fraction of the work to paint my 36 foot boat which was $25k in Mexico.

Apples and oranges

Peter

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wow Peter that's a lot of pesos. i guess Ensenada is not what it used to be.

JWellington said:

As we watch you chip and sand and paint all that rust.........continually.

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Do you even understand that fiberglass boats do not rust? This thread isn’t about your love for aluminum boats but rather about how much it costs to paint a boat, maybe stick to that???

So I contacted Al Kelly in Sidney B.C who specializes in painting boats and has been doing just that for 30 years. he gave a rough quote over the phone and said, approximately $18,000 dollars to do the hull and upwards of $60,000 to do the topsides for a total of potentially $80,000. Now he did say that would be a high number and it would all factor on the condition of the cabin. So that's my choice, 80 grand to guarantee a beautiful outcome or 45 grand, but I don't think I'd get the same guarantee, but potentially a very good looking boat. I'm really not sure if my boat is worth putting 80 grand into, but I'd lean on no. I would really like to have this done right and not have to think about it but until I'm able turn copper into gold I'll have to wait I'm afraid. So there you go, that's the price your looking at up here and I'm pretty sure Al Kelly is comparable to any premium boat yard down south. So if your planning on doing yours and wondering the price...about 65,000 US.

mvweebles said:

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Apples and oranges

Peter

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I guess my point is, at least on a timber boat is that the guy doing the sanding and painting on a timber house is just as capable of doing the sanding and painting on a timber boat
Same same but different, without the boat premium price

ofer said:

wow Peter that's a lot of pesos. i guess Ensenada is not what it used to be.

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I had a lot of fiberglass repairs. 50 year old boat had many old instrument holes I had filled. Some gelcoat repair meaning hi-build primer and lots of sanding. All ports and hardware were removed. Caprails were encapsulated in glass and sprayed. In the car world, would be equivalent of a frame-off paint job.

The paint job Simi is talking about could be done for couple hundred bucks.

Peter

Simi 60 said:

I guess my point is, at least on a timber boat is that the guy doing the sanding and painting on a timber house is just as capable of doing the sanding and painting on a timber boat
Same same but different, without the boat premium price

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I've seen many commercial fishing boats done like this. They look fine from a distance.

Even in house painting there are different levels of finish and prep. Some houses have a lot of trim work, others don't. If you're okay with heavily textured surfaces that hide all sorts of imperfections you can get away cheap. Want a smooth finish that shows any sag or overspray? Gets expensive quickly.

Not a "boat premium." It's a quality premium - get what you pay for. But please, don't equate the two efforts as equal except for cost. You may not see the value of spending extra, but that doesn't make the outcomes comparable.

Peter

mvweebles said:

I've seen many commercial fishing boats done like this. They look fine from a distance.

Even in house painting there are different levels of finish and prep. Some houses have a lot of trim work, others don't. If you're okay with heavily textured surfaces that hide all sorts of imperfections you can get away cheap. Want a smooth finish that shows any sag or overspray? Gets expensive quickly.

Not a "boat premium." It's a quality premium - get what you pay for. But please, don't equate the two efforts as equal except for cost. You may not see the value of spending extra, but that doesn't make the outcomes comparable.

Peter

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I did my apprenticeship building aluminium superyachts so know full well the difference between paintjobs

I have had expensive, or at least, labour intensive (my labour) paintjobs on composite boats , done to a similar standard to what the superyachts had, as that was the only level of finish I knew and on the first night out on one of them had someone drag into us and do several thou in damage.
Expensive paintjobs ruined.
Every time the boat was used was a downhill spiral of trying to avoid scratches,scrapes, drops and damage
The guys banging against the side in their canoe in Vanuatu don't give a jot how nice your paint is

Now we have what we have with a timber house/workboat finish and zero feks are given
I can enjoy using the boat without worrying about the expensive paint
Anchor chain drags across the hull, doesn't really matter
Dinghy bangs into the side, doesn't matter
Even had a guy drag into us several weeks ago, don't really matter.

Not having to worry about the finish or the cost to achieve it is enlightening
Especially as we, full time cruising and living onboard, don't see the outside much.

As for heavily textured, it's a timber boat FFS, you can see every plank
But the paint is not heavily textured as can be seen by the shine.in the pic below
Quick roll and tip with cheap Jotun enamel

Further to the above, having spent 40 years in and out of the industry what I have noticed is that a lot of people have no idea what a well built boat or a good paintjob is

With my critical eye from back in the superyacht days, I now see so many boats where the owner having spent a Motza on paint getting what I would consider a 70% result at best, boats aren't fair, lines are on the piss, even on a Palm Beach 55 we were invited on, far from perfect to my eye.

But they think it's great and it cost plenty of coin so that's all that matters I guess.

Comodave said:

Do you even understand that fiberglass boats do not rust? This thread isn’t about your love for aluminum boats but rather about how much it costs to paint a boat, maybe stick to that???

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Yes, I know it, and see the paint and blisters and polishing , etc too. I dont like to paint steel or fibreglass boats. I guess the only plastic boat Id have are those HDPE ones, that can be left bare too. There have been some in the interesting boats' forums.

There is a huge difference in prep work required between a planked wood boat and a fiberglass boat. Simi's boat looks great - for a planked wood boat. If you paid even a few thousand and got that on a fiberglass boat you'd want your money back. The waviness and imperfections expected in wood are not acceptable in fiberglass. Get a quote from a yard on what it would cost to finish your planked wood boat to an optically perfect surface.

We did our own work on prep and paint with Seafarer. Our paint of choice was from Kirby Paint Co. Haulout, blocking and lay days were about $1500. Materials were about $1000. Took us two weeks to sand and prep and one day per coat.

I’m with Simi on this one as it’s nice looking but we never freaked out about using her.

I'm having the boat painted at North Island Fiberglass in Courtenay B.C. I'll be posting pictures of the process on here as soon as we get started. If you are from this area and would be interested in a quote from this shop you can contact them. Owners name is Ty and their number is (250) 941-7788.

I painted the hull on our 57' aluminum trawler this year using the roll and tip method after doing most of the topsides the year before. It was a big learning curve to get the paint and procedure to a point that it would look good close up. I was painting over Awlgrip and Awlcraft that was done 20 years ago, it had lost a lot of its shine and was faded quite a bit. I used Endura which is a 2 part polyurethane paint that will not fade and is extremely hard once cured. Its a widely used paint in the oil patch that stands up to the very harsh conditions on the industrial machinery used in this industry. It is easy to match colours and I did so using the Awlgrip colour numbers used on the previous paint job. Prep is very important! Also when rolling and tipping temperature and brush quality, thinning etc are a learned process.
As well I had to use a boathouse to control the weather etc.
I'm very curious where they are going to paint your boat, are you having it transported to a boat yard? I'm in Ladysmith and one of the reasons I decided to do this myself was the lack of places to have this done properly....outside of phillbrooks which would be beyond my budget. 20 years ago entire boat was sandblasted, faired, and Awlgrip top to bottom for 155,000.00 at Fraser Fibreglass in North Van.

Hobbit said:

I painted the hull on our 57' aluminum trawler this year using the roll and tip method after doing most of the topsides the year before. It was a big learning curve to get the paint and procedure to a point that it would look good close up. I was painting over Awlgrip and Awlcraft that was done 20 years ago, it had lost a lot of its shine and was faded quite a bit. I used Endura which is a 2 part polyurethane paint that will not fade and is extremely hard once cured. Its a widely used paint in the oil patch that stands up to the very harsh conditions on the industrial machinery used in this industry. It is easy to match colours and I did so using the Awlgrip colour numbers used on the previous paint job. Prep is very important! Also when rolling and tipping temperature and brush quality, thinning etc are a learned process.
As well I had to use a boathouse to control the weather etc.
I'm very curious where they are going to paint your boat, are you having it transported to a boat yard? I'm in Ladysmith and one of the reasons I decided to do this myself was the lack of places to have this done properly....outside of phillbrooks which would be beyond my budget. 20 years ago entire boat was sandblasted, faired, and Awlgrip top to bottom for 155,000.00 at Fraser Fibreglass in North Van.

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We're getting it done at North Island Fiberglass in Courtenay. The boat will be done inside their shop. I posted on this thread their phone number and contact. They've done some really nice work and their rates are good. I'm going to approach the owner and see if we can video document the process.

My covid project last year was to paint our 42' sundeck motor yacht's topsides. Used Alexseal - great support from them. Removed hardware, ground out many, many spider cracks, and a few other dings, faired and sanded. Used their primer also. White paint over white gelcoat. Rolled with 4", 1/8" nap rollers. Turned out great, but was a lot of work. Just kept reminding myself I was saving around $40,000 - our topside has a lot of territory. Was in a covered slip with no boats on either side.

FoxtrotCharlie said:

My covid project last year was to paint our 42' sundeck motor yacht's topsides. Used Alexseal - great support from them. Removed hardware, ground out many, many spider cracks, and a few other dings, faired and sanded. Used their primer also. White paint over white gelcoat. Rolled with 4", 1/8" nap rollers. Turned out great, but was a lot of work. Just kept reminding myself I was saving around $40,000 - our topside has a lot of territory. Was in a covered slip with no boats on either side.

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Yup I can appreciate the wanting to save money part. It's like I mentioned at the beginning, the weather up here can be cantankerous to deal with, otherwise I would attempt it. My finishing skills are not the best but I would attempt it.
$45000 is a lot of money. Serenity now

After all the work of setting things up like financing and where to have it painted, it turns out our boat is just to tall to move and no boat mover here on the island will touch it. Lesson learned, before you do anything check to see if it can be moved first. But I will give a final mention to Tyler and his crew at North Island Fiberglass in Courtenay. Seems like a really good guy, just in case any of you are looking to have something painted here on Vancouver Island, their rates are very good compared to boatyard rates.

The best job and most competitive price you will bet on an Alexseal paint job is with Valet Yacht services at Shelter Island. They spray onlt and prep work is meticulous.

I use strong marine services out of Vancouver bc going to post some photos soon of what they have done for me and its amazing!