Brush Streaks

Kuewa's exterior cabin side got its 8th coat of paint today. Four epoxy primer coats and now 4 Awlgrip polyester urethane finish coats. Mike Cheong helped apply finish coat #3 on Saturday using his professional tipping technique following my rolling efforts.

Yes, really - professional. When Mike got fed up with the defense electronics engineering contracting world several years ago, he took a break and worked on boats in Sausalito for a living. That makes him a professional. One of the tasks was applying the varnish to wooden hulls on classic boats. The boat owners were very finicky and the owner of the business was so particular that the workers were not allowed to know the formula for the varnish/solvent they used. The manager would bring the blend out of a back room and hand it to the workers.

The plan worked. Mike cleared his head, and the fortunate defense electronics engineering world now has Mike back. Although Mike's painting skills are exemplary, the security of our country benefits greatly from Mike's intelligence. (Discussions with Mike about work are always brief - he is never able to tell us anything about what he's working on). I'm just happy Kuewa benefits as well!

Mike's Saturday tipping looked really nice, but he wouldn't let me call it quits after that coat. He was dissatisfied with a couple of areas with a slight sag.

This is how it looks after I applied finish coat #4 today. It passes the 4-foot test, but probably not the 3-foot. Meaning you see lots of brush streaks at 3 feet. I'll sand this again tomorrow and Thursday (about 9 hours with the sanders) and Mike and I will apply the final coat Saturday. I bought Mike (well, I guess Kuewa) a $35 paint brush for that final tipping.

We will probably not eliminate brush streaks altogether. If it's possible, I certainly don't have the skills. Mike probably would given enough time at it (this paint behaves differently than his varnish). Kuewa is a sailing boat, not a boat show boat, so with 9 layers of UV protection, I'm happy with the look we've got here. Besides, pretty soon the birds crap all over it anyway.