Glen-L.com

I have never painted a boat, or a car, etc.. ( Just basic white house paint for the interior of the home) So I was wondering .. Would I paint the entire outside of the hull the one color (Interlux White in this case) and the go back and paint over that already painted white area with my second color to add the stripes I want. (In this case, striping will be Interlux Brightside Yellow) -OR- Do I just mask off the seperate areas from the start.?? I don't feel this is a dumb question, and I'd hate not to ask it and do it wrong.
Hope I've made sense here..

_________________
Think safety. stay afloat

Paint your base color first over the whole thing. Then mask off the stripes afterward. It is important to rub down the very edge of the tape on the stripe color. The paint can creep under the tape and give a ragged line. If spraying, it helps to lightly spray the taped lines with a very light coat, allow this to tack (sealing the tape edge), before laying on heavy wet coats.
I tried to paint each color by themselves once, like you asked in your question; it is far to difficult to mask matching lines adjacent to each other.

hmmmm, I did it the other way around.

I have red/white and blue tug boat. The bumpers are one color, the topside another and below the waterline another. I used 3m tape to make the color breaks and I painted each color individually and the lines are perfect. The only line that might show is where the sides have the blue and the red that come together but I am going to have a white boot stripe that will cover both so it will take care of that problem. I dont see a problem with painted each color individually. It worked for me.
Steve

I've always thought that you should paint the lighter colors first. If you paint darker colors first, they will bleed through the lighter colors much like a dark t-shirt would show under a white dress shirt. So paint the light colors first, then mask off for the next darkest color and finish off with the very darkest color last.

At least that's what I've always done and it seemed to work well.

_________________
Isn't it amazing!! The person that never has the fortitude to pursue his own dreams, will be the first to try and discourage you from pursuing yours.

Make sure you read Graham Knight's reply in the topic below titled "Painting Fluid Lines". He talks about how to get perfect edges on stripes by sealing the edge of the tape line with the undercoat colour. It is great advice.

Bruce T.