Priming the Decks.

We applied a coat of primer to the top deck and the bridge.  Gregg and I convinced my friend, Mary, to come help us with the boat (we might not have told her we were painting)...

First, we had to sand areas where the old paint was peeling.  To do this, I bought this accessory for the power drill:

Next, we taped off areas that did not need to be repainted (actually, Mary and Gregg did the taping):

We did not have to do too much to prepare the deck for the primer because the primer I chose did not require pre-treating.  We used Amerlock 2: Fast drying surface tolerant VOC compliant epoxy (http://ppgamercoatus.ppgpmc.com/products/pdf/2_PDS_AI.pdf).  This consists of a gallon of epoxy resin and a gallon of cure.  The two must be mixed in a one-to-one ratio.  Once you mix them, you have about 45 minutes before it starts to get tacky.

We used two red solo cups and a measuring cup.  We filled one cup with the resin and one with the cure, then poured them both into the measuring cup, mixed them thoroughly and dumped the mixture into the paint pan.  We started with a small amount because I was worried about the short pot-life.

Apparently the cure is a pretty strong chemical!  It completely melted the red solo cup.  When we went back to refill the paint pan, we dumped some of the cure into the red cup, and it went straight through the meted bottom--all over the place!  Luckily we were doing all of the pouring and mixing over a blue drop cloth that my friend, Beth, gave me.  We were able to scoop up the cure and lost very little product.  Notice the droopy, melting cup:

With all three of us working, it did not take too long to get both upper decks painted:

And now the primer coat is complete (next is 2 coats of the top coat).  The primer is white, but the top coat is tinted to the same cream color as the rest of the boat.  No more stripes:

(I love the pics from Gregg's GoPro Camera!)

I should mention how extremely helpful the folks at KOI in Bellevue, KY have been throughout the painting process (http://www.koiautoparts.com/).  This is the KOI location that specializes in paint only.  John Hopkins has spent hours discussing options and explaining how to apply paints, etc.  They have been wonderful!

Remember that dinghy we found in the warehouse?:

I purchased an air pump from the Ship Store, and after it was scrubbed and inflated (thanks, Gregg Tepe), it looks like this:

We are going to re-coat this with a special paint for rubber and replace the lines with nice, new, orange ones.  Then we'll have a new name applied, and hang her on the back of the boat from the davits. 

This brings me to a very important question...What should I name the dinghy?

And, the best part...a friend of the person who owns the King's Craft across the dock from me saw my blog.  He brought these fender holders to me:

I can't wait to see my 6 new, orange fenders hanging from the her rails in these!  I have really been wanting some of these, and I am amazed that they are exactly the right size, and hold exactly 6 fenders.  So very thoughtful of the person who dropped these off for me.  THANK YOU!!

And the work continues...