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Painting the mast

4K views 18 replies 15 participants last post by  Jeff_H 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi All,

I searched the forums and din't come up with a good answer. My 34 year old painted mast is in dire need of a complete refurb including the paint. The PO's did the spray can touch up thing and now I could call my mast "spot". :)

From what I know about aircraft and auto painting, if the base primer and paint are still stuck good after scuffing, it is not necessary to sand down to bare metal. Any discussion pro or con to this?

Dave
 
#2 ·
Did my 44 year old boat mast 17 years ago. The stainless halyards over the years wore through the anodized finish. I did a full strip down of hardware, wiring harness inside of the mast and paint outside. New paint has held up very well. I had to go to the top this year to replace the wind vane. Pant was starting to chalk, vehicle is breaking down, but paint is not pealing...yet. I sanded all the anodized paint off, applied two coats of a two part epoxy primer self etching, made for priming aluminum. Then two coats of a two part top boot paint. My plans were to sell the boat within 5 years of the paint job...but oh well. Looks like I will need to repaint soon, if it starts pealing I will have to strip it down again (allot easier then removing the anodized paint). Just the surface paint vehicle is breaking down, that is what protects the paint and gives paint it's shine. I should be able to give it a light sanding and repaint.

Hope that helps...
 
#3 ·
I met a boater in San Diego who completely removed all paint and has a bare aluminum spar though he must have used some covering over the metal. It looked really cool. I could probably get back in touch with an email to his wife, if you're interested in more details.
 
#5 ·
I painted my mast 2yr's ago . I went to a yard and had it craned off the boat . I (we) used single part Interlux Bright Sides . The only prep we did was to sand . I probaley should have done all the good guy stuff like primer , but we did not . It turned out nice . I did a mast on my first boat the same way . After I sold that boat the new owner kept it in my marina for about 10 yr's . After 10 yr's it still looked good!
 
#7 ·
I just got the estimate on painting mine as part of the overall work to be done this winter. At over 3k it will wait a while. Like 30 more years.
That including cleaning, acid wash, prime, weld dings full and such to make it cosmetically new.
 
#18 ·
#10 ·
for those leaving it bare(mine is painted and chalky) what process did you use for sanding down and cleanup?

did you apply any coat to accelerate the oxide finish? I want nothing to do with paint and the expense on my mast...I also plan to not take it down...jejee

thanks
 
#12 ·
After reading some of your replies... What would be involved if I opted to remove the paint from the mast and boom? I'm guessing more "chemical" work. I am dealing with lots of restrictions at the local marina and don't know how "free" I can go with spome of these chemical processes. Cleaning up the painted mast and repainting seems to me to be the least painful.

Dave
 
#16 ·
I just painted my boom with Brightsides. While I ended up with a very nice job, and it was easy to apply, I was a little disappointed with how soft and easily damaged Brightsides turned out. I had a lot of exposed aluminum so I ended up priming the boom. Interlux recommends their Primecote, or Pre-Cote primers for that.

If I were to do it again I probably would have done better with Interlux Perfection, which is a harder finish. Unfortunately,you can't apply Perfection over Brightsides.

Jeff
 
#17 ·
Like Jeff H, I just did this, and I used the Primecoat like was suggested, I went with black on the mast, and used Interlux Perfection. The Perfection looks great, but like any painting requires great amount of cleanliness in process and honestly my experience is it requires you to be right at the proper temperature.

Where I disagree with Jeff, is Perfection suffers from being easily dinged as well on the mast, and while the primer is holding up great, the perfection already has multiple dings through it. I also had a VERY dirty environment to paint in, and I was thoroughly NOT happy with my results, which I totally attribute to my location of work, NOT the product. That being said, I think I'd have been happier leaving the mast just primed (it is a silver primer, and the mast would look bare).

Here are some pictures before, during, after, and in use...
Mast being sanded down to bare metal... Note mast color was flat white (probably originally gloss white)


Mast being primed, note primer is Interlux Primecote, silver in color.


Boom getting painted (note the environment? Yes that's hay, so totally my fault, and also note, it was about 45 degrees in the barn) I later sanded everything down and did more coats with it about 50-60 degrees in there, but it was still pretty dusty in that environment.


I can't find a close-up of the mast/boom, but it's probably better I didn't. There are places that shackles have smacked the mast, and removed the black down to the primer. The coating is softer than it should be (in my opinion)...


By the way, like someone else mentioned, I DIDN'T prime my spinnaker pole, just sanded it down and painted it with Perfection.... big sheets of paint are already peeling off! YOU MUST PRIME FIRST!

I like perfection but it's WAY to tricky for a Harry Homeowner like me to get right. I'm notoriously impatient with painting, and it requires proper timing, and technique to do. I did my prior whole boat hull topsides with Brightsides, and found it to be more acceptable to paint with. Again I am hugely lazy and impatient.

By the way, I TOO thought that sanding down to bare metal, and leaving it bare would be a good alternative, except, within days of sanding the mast, the aluminum starts to oxidize, and produces a light grey/black oxidation. I cannot imagine how quickly it'd turn nice white sails into dull/gray mess, and infinitely worse if we are talking about the deck. Perhaps the oxidation would provide it's own layer of protection I dunno, I just know that I wouldn't want my nice white sails any dirtier than they already are.

For the record, I think the proper primer USED to be a chromate primer... it's still available in places but is less easily available, and looks to be getting phased out.

I think if I had used pretty much ANY paint over the primer I applied, it'd have a similar level of success. picking gloss black, was probably NOT one of my better decisions. Flat black, or better yet, flat white probably would have been the wiser choice. I might redo the mast this coming winter, but I so DREAD the work involved I might just deal with it ugly.

Last note, I avoided painting the hull on my boat this winter for similar reasons to above. The location I have to work (and season of cold), and I can honestly say I didn't want to deal with it. I attempted to fix some gelcoat issues (coloring) on the port side of my boat, and was only marginally successful, I did that to avoid having to paint. After messing around with gelcoat a while I'd say painting is a VERY VIABLE alternative to dealing with it.

I'm not just blowing smoke either, this was my last boat (which was awlgripped 20 years prior and the paint was falling off), so painting was really my only option... And YES it was painted in the same location as the mast.
Before


After
 
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#19 ·
While it is still possible to buy zinc rich primer, it is much harder to find zinc chromate primers these days due to concerns about introducing heavy metal into the environment. There really isn't a simple way to add chrome to paint or a good reason to do so.
 
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