Paint

[Balduccimoto]

Im looking to paint my ski.. The idea is to fix some gelcoat chips/cracks with some polyester putty. Then paint the bottom with gloss black and the top deck with a 2 stage metallic orange and add in a 3M Dinoc carbon inlay then clear coat it all together. Im looking for cheap, it doesnt have to be show quality, some durability would be nice though. About 4 years ago I painted the front end of my car with paint from www.paintforcars.com I did a single stage white, acrylic enamel and it turned out pretty good for a $80/gallon paint. It was gloss white, no metallic though. Im not sure how their metallic would turn out. Any other cheap paints you can swear by?

Also looking for a paint gun, my Sata Jet is toast. Im liking the devilbiss finishline master kit with all different nozzles.

 

[gto0209]

I use the nason ful-base line, nice coverage, and the base sprays really nice. I typically use house brand primer and sealer from the local body shop supply.

 

[Balduccimoto]

I sprayed nason and it worked pretty good on a cousins fender. My friend owns a body shop and he is confident any bc/cc wont last at all. He said something about "youre going to crash it and sink it, how much u wanna bet the orange goig to chip all over, whites going to be underneath and its going to piss you off." I think he has a good point. He did recommend Delfleet Essential. Its for fleet cars, its cheap, it lays thick and is super tough. I never heard "cheap" and "good paint" in the same sentence from him so it must be good. Im going to take a look at it today

 

[gto0209]

My blaster was painted 3 years ago now and has seen serious abuse, and still looks as good as day one. Prep it well and you will be fine. Food for thought, all the big offshore boats (fountain, ciggarette etc) that have custom paint jobs are base/clear, and get pounded just as hard as our skis and have no issues.

 

[Speleopower]

I have used Auto-Air paint with a 2 part clearcoat on 4 skis and it looks good and holds up nicely. Regardless of what paint you use prep the ski very well. Mineral spirit washdown and maybe a MEK washdown as well to get any oils, wax etc of the surface.
Scott

 

[modularjunk]

I have painted jet skis boats and cars with emron paints both 2 stage and single stage with great results. I painted my girls jet ski with single stage white came out perfect even after hurricane sandy when the ski was ripped around attached to the trailer smashed into pilings rolled around dragged up and down a block wall then had a shed on top of it. Not 1 area of paint chipped. Yes where the wall n trailer ripped through the nose was messed up but paint never failed or chipped the fiberglass broke first. The rest of the ski looked new still. Emron you cant beat and isnt that expensive. Was under 200 for all the materials to paint a whole couch ski.

Emron ive had great luck with and probably what im painting the current fixsteer with.

 

[glennbbautomachine]

Mineral spirits is bad enough, but MEK is bad s**t.

 

[gto0209]

Prep-sol works good, you can get it from any body shop supply house.

 

[SUPERJET-113]

Dont use a acrylic enamel because for just a few dollars you more can get a acrylic urethane which will much more durable.
My favorite cheap single stage acrylic urethane is PPG's Omni MTK. Painted tons of skis with it and it has lasted. It doesnt chip or fade, even in this brutal AZ sun.

PPG also makes Omni Plus which is a base/clear system and its still pretty cheap.
Nason is not bad, have used it before, but like Omni better. Also as mentioned Dupont "Imron" is a good ol paint too. The 1990 purple/yellow SN SJ in the pics below I painted with Imron in 1992 and the hull sits in my backyard now and the paint still looks awesome!

 

[icecoled007]

What are you guys using for spray guns

 

[Balduccimoto]

Looks like imron it is. Im curious what everyone is sprayig with too. Im about to order the devilbiss finishline 4 master kit. Comes with 1.3, 1.5, 1.8 and 2.2 tips. That 2.2 tip is key since i can spray heavier coatings later on.

 

[modularjunk]

You prob wouldt believe me but my primer gun is an old harbor freight lol. Works great though and I have an older sato but I painted my last 2 skis with a husky gun from homedepot haha. Took a little fine tuning at first but once I got it set it worked great for last 2 skis and a car. Granted it was single stage so hard to screw it up bc and imperfections get wet sanded out but I can honestly say I had one baby drip that blocked out easily

 

[JT_Freeride]

You prob wouldt believe me but my primer gun is an old harbor freight lol. Works great though and I have an older sato but I painted my last 2 skis with a husky gun from homedepot haha. Took a little fine tuning at first but once I got it set it worked great for last 2 skis and a car. Granted it was single stage so hard to screw it up bc and imperfections get wet sanded out but I can honestly say I had one baby drip that blocked out easily

I sprayed my ski with interlux using a harbor freight gun. In all honestly it was that bad only like 3 times the gun spit a drop that was easily sanded out. But I will say that the finish from that gun was beyond orange peel took me another 15 hours to wet sand and polish until I said fck it I'm warping it.

 

[modularjunk]

Yea john u def have to test it first. U prob sprayed it to much pressure and not wet enough. Plus interlux isnt exactly the easiest to thin and spray

 

[SUPERJET-113]

Ive been using a Devilbiss finishline 2 that I bought many years ago and its still going strong, I use it all the time. Just gotta keep'em clean. Great gun for sure for the price!

 

[SpaceCowboy]

I know nothing about paint...What is the difference between what you guys are talking about and spraying gel coat?

 

[Balduccimoto]

Gelcoat is a pigmented polyester resin thats laid on heavy in the mold to hide the weave. The original gelcoat is sprayed or brushed in the mold then the fiberglass is laid into the mold on top. When you pop it out of the mold, it is already painted. This allows the resin to cure with the rest of the hull and there is a chemical bond (and is compatible with epoxy at that time) Recoating with gelcoat is not as strong because it relies on a mechanical bond. Since it's polyester, it's not ideal to gelcoat over any epoxy repairs.

I got paint the other day. I decided on Imron, but they told me Imron doesn't offer any metallics. They recommended to me DuPont Rival which is also a commercial paint. It's a fairly new line from DuPont i'll let ya'll know how it works. I got a quart of burnt metallic orange for the top deck, a quart of gloss black for the bottom deck, activators and primer. I think it was about $200 total.

I also ordered a new Devilbiss Finishline 4, 1.3, 1.5, 1.8, 2.2 tips and cleaning kit.

If anyone else is looking for paint, a friend of mine said to me Imron is ancient, junk and DuPont is going to discontinue that line. He said it lays on badly and went on saying "fleetline essential" by PPG is great, cheap paint.

 

[modularjunk]

yes dupont is discontinuing the imron line bc the new environmental laws and its so bad for you but if you have a place that will still make the old mix it works unreal. imron still isnt junk its been around forever and cures the hardest out of any paint. if it was junk it wouldnt be used on all aircrafts and by the military ;-)

 

[BrightE's]

Imron does metallic, if you can still find it. But yes theyre ending the line soon. Don't spray that stuff without full tank fed breathers, peeps have died from it.

Sent from my LG-G2 using Tapatalk

 

[Balduccimoto]

Rival must be the replacement imron then. They are rated for 2.8 or 3.5 VOC the guy at the store said it is "like imron" and uses the same chips or something IDK exactly what he said. It was lingo im not familiar with. I used a regular respirator spraying it and im still alive so thats always good. I did the bottom last weekend and moving to the top thissunday. Yeah i sae those paint chips listed under the marine imron. I guess he didnt mention it bc i was looking for a orange metallic. The rival line has tons more metallic options