Mast Painting

Again, things have been a little nutty- and it was vacation time (cruising St. Vincent & the Grenadines for 2 weeks- with a weekend stop in Barbados to go see Mount Gay)-- so I've been neglecting the blog. But I have gotten into the mast strip/paint project! The mast was pulled right before the boat came out of the water last fall. It went fine other than the yard guys breaking the steaming/foredeck light with the crane strap-- not bad for pulling almost 60' of stick out.

I took the spreaders home to do some experimentation. I had gotten different ideas from different people. I ended up trying an aircraft stripper made for taking 2 part paints off of aluminum. Can't get much more specific than that, right?

As you can see, it took the paint right off. Trick is just to be patient and let it do it's work.

Then a little sanding, and voila- ready for etching and primer.

Then the same treatment for the boom...

There was a little corrosion around some of the original fixtures (the holes in the photo are for "T" track that gets adjustable cars for reef lines)

















But again, a little sanding and it's good as new. Note: important step that is not pictured here is etching- which is a pre-primer to help reduce corrosion and promote primer/paint adhesion.

















Then 3 coats of primer, and it's ready for paint!

















Next step is painting the boom and spreaders on bad weather days since I can do them indoors, and stripping, etching, priming and painting the mast. Doing the smaller parts first has kept the time loss due to learning curve down to a minimum.
Also, we've decided to replace all the wiring in the mast, the anchor light (with an LED unit), and of course the steaming/foredeck light that was broken in the mast unstep. We figure if we do it all now, we won't have to do it with the stick up!
S