100 Grit

In my mind, the task at hand is to get this cat painted. In the professional marine industry terms, this is sometimes just called applying the "topcoat".

It has taken me about 5 years to arrive at the point where a top coat can be applied.  Of course, one of the main reasons that it has taken this long is that the boat did not exist yet.  So, like they say, most off the work required for a paint job is in the preparation.  When it comes to rather involved projects, I have found that it helps to break things down into various doable stages.  Stage 1:  build the catamaran.  stage 2: paint it.

I like to tell myself that I am at stage 2 now but I am also finding the need to break this task down into a smaller steps and it all seems to come down to surface finish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_finishing


So, the challenge that I have given myself is to apply a #3 architectural finish to every external surface of the boat and the humbling thing to remember is that's darn well close to a # 4 dairy sanitation finish.  The only real reason that I have chosen that level of smoothness is that it is a point where Awlgrip 545  primer can be applied so that full hiding of surface irregularities can be expected.