I posted the following last August, and I think it gives some insight into the cost of painting a hull. In this description it was ONLY about 8 square feet off hull on the stbd bow which was taken down to the primer and repainted. The rest was a buffing job.
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While getting the bottom antifouling coat renewed, I elected to have the local boat painting company, which works out of Miller Marine boatyard here, repair some hull scratches (hurricane-caused and other miscellaneous bumps) and one larger poorly executed paint repair on the red Awlcraft sides of the boat. This company previously painted the hull of my wooden Grand Banks and also applied the million-dollar paint job on the exquisite 100-foot tall ship Columbia, built here by the owner of Eastern Shipyard. Suffice it to say, they know what they are doing.
Conventional wisdom and AwlCraft instructions would suggest you should not buff this paint, and my own messing around with nothing harsher than a paper towel and some alcohol on a dime-sized spot certainly confirmed that you can easily dull the coating, which turned out to be clear coated.
Most of the scratches which I assumed were through the paint have been buffed out by the expert using a large diameter foam pad and 3m Perfect-It EX 36060. I simply cannot find the buffed-out scratches now. The guy doing the work says that the boat has a clear coat over the red AwlCraft, not that it made any difference in his approach. He said the tip off to the clear coat was that the sanding dust was initially white until he worked through the clear.
The boat has been mostly kept under cover, but there are a few years in its early life about which the P.O. and I are uncertain. So the hull paint color falls in between Vivid Red and Claret on the Awlcraft paint chip pallet and will have to be matched in the one area of previous repair.
If he cannot match it well enough by eye, he intends to call the local National Coating Systems (NCS) store which will come up with a specialized camera and take several shots up against the hull. Then they will go mix a better match.
This all makes me a bit nostalgic for my old trawler's hull with the beveled strakes which made it easy to roll on some AwlGrip when it needed touchup. These big flat areas of fiberglass are too hard for me to deal with when it comes to paint repair.
AND LATER:
More information from the painting professionals. Except in the areas noted in my first post, my 2005 original hull paint is in excellent condition maybe in large part due to being kept under cover, but I was also warned about using Dawn and other such cleaners and the annual buffing some owners have been noted to engage in. AwlWash used on Awlgrip and Awlcraft followed by AwlCare are the ways these guys say keeps that paint looking good. The painters told me once they have finished with wet sanding (1000, 2000, and then 3000 grit foam discs followed by 3M Perfect It on a slow turning foam disc) the clear coat on the one area requiring repainting that I should apply Awlcare.
Speaking of paint color, the paint color palette I bought for Awlcraft/Awlgrip is apparently not an exact match to the actual paint in the cans. The painting company owner and I carefully looked at the palette colors in the sun against the hull and determined the color on the boat fell between Vivid Red and Claret. He made the educated guess and got Claret which matches exactly with what is on the boat.
UNQUOTE
The end product is nothing less than perfect, and the cost of the painting/buffing was $2000.
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So i will be rolling and tipping Alexseal as soon as spring/summer arrives.
