Prep? At the risk of sounding clever, you can go through the motions or do it properly. My dodgy roof took me all summer to prep and paint. Some parts where there had been stuff screwed to it I fillered. Big mistake, those parts blew. Damp through filler from inside. I redid those bits last summer making brass grub screws for the holes that I screwed in 1-2mm below the surface, then chemical metal on top. Then 2 coats primer, fillered the area smooth and painted all the other coats. Originally I'd spot hacked at every rust spot (literally 100's, maybe thousands) with a die grinder, then used Kurust, filler and all the paint coats. Very few have come back. Perhaps 10 on the whole roof. I was a hell of a job and I'm not sure how much it helped, but I was mostly concerned with not having to do it all again. I'd say 95% successful. It's going to be prep in some way. We're obsessed with keying and dust removal, we wash, wash, tack rag, the works. We aim to paint to the tin instructions, getting a chemical bond each coat to save sanding until it's time for top coat, then we flat the undercoat (4 coats), wash, tack-rag, paint. We never paint in the sun. we time it to be painting in the shade of the boat so the steel isn't hot. For the roof we pootle down the canal and paint under a bridge. Takes some planning and patience!
Around the portholes on one side it was so rusty there was only half the steel left, but same approach as above - hack into the rust removing as much as poss without going right through. I did uses vactan last year doing that, then a bucket of filler and paint. So far so good.
beside rotating tools, whats about tools like a HAZET 9035-5 needlegun scaler? But the metal needs to be solid enough - not to use at thin sheet metal.
We had spent a week in the roof taking the old paint off and taking off the rust. Then fertan. Then filler. Then primer, undercoat, topcoat. It’s a bit more awkward not living on the boat so was doing it around work. It was hard to know when to start. Before the sun was up on the boat folk said too much moisture in the air, the same for evening time . The rest seems ok, just where the filler has blown. Did you work on yours full time through the summer. I washed between coats and keyed. I used decorators cleaning cloths to remove dust and grease too. I think I will have to just make it as good as I can in the time I’ve got to do it in.
It's 5mm thick but I'm not up for needle gunning 20 sq m of flat plus all the strengthen supports... and that's only half of it... and I'm living in it.
Not so bad as I thought from your original description. It's an advantage to be on the boat ready to strike when the forecast predicts a spell of better weather. There is a temp dependent window for recoating without keying - that's our focus - if the weather causes us to miss that chemical bond window it's an awful lot more work so we wait patiently for a good run of weather instead. There's always something to do inside if we get fidgety about it.
Your filler - it's a sponge - might look dry on the surface when the sun dries any overnight dew, but maybe it was still damp deeper down. If I had wet filler I'd wait all day and paint last minute. Maybe you had a damp filler problem? That wouldn't happen for me because I'm able to pounce at no notice when weather is right., I filler sand and paint asap. I would not filler If there was a chance it would get wet before it was painted.
I think that was possibly the case. I did contemplate using a metal filler like on cars but thought I’d better stick with what they sold in the chandlers as I don’t really have a clue what works best. I was also a bit unsure as to whether the fetanned bits needed primer and undercoat, or if mixing two different makes of paint had any possible problems. Tbh my main areas of concern are leaky windows but I’m too worried about breaking them to make a start. Also to access from inside I would have to remove all my lovely tongue and groove
I would advise against ripping out your interior unless you really have to and you're up for it. I think maybe there's a lot of sense in owning a boat for a while, studying all that makes a boat iffy and using your new knowledge to buy a good one, but do nothing to it. Once you start fixing up a boat to this level you are throwing good money after bad and sadly you will not increase it's value by a single penny because all you're doing is making it like it should have been in the first place. Give up half way and you just threw away £10-20K by devaluing what you have. Like campers really - do it all or do nothing. Put up some nice curtains, flog it and buy a good one that someone else has thrown too much time and money at. I would/should have done this, but there are too many unique aspects to ours that I like enough to go through this misery. I did go and look round one for sale here the other day thinking I might be better off with one to live on/one to fix it's that bad working/living on one at the same time. Only £50K ... maybe I'll rent a temporary little house/flat if I get really fed up
Don't know why they dropped "Hitachi". Koki are legit - they appear to own Metabo, so not rubbish - but Hikoki just sounds like some cheapo made up Chinese brand. Remember: Man with grinder in pocket feel Hikoki all day!
When I first started buying power tools Hitachi was my choice (helped they had 2 dealers in Barnsley) They then seemed to drop off with the advent of battery power and makita became the main go to brand. So possibly thought it was time for a rebrand. I have a 1/2 18v hikoki router, awesome piece of kit. It was the final nail in the coffin for needing a generator.
