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I've learned a few painful lessons and wanted to share them. I'm still in the process of correcting these so anyone with experience please chime in.

I applied the first coat of SM1000 over the recommend primer. Temperature was 70 degrees, and humidity was low. I added 10% thinner per the directions. I painted the skeg with a brush, and then proceeded to paint the rest of the boat with one of the foam hot dog rollers.

Mistake 1: The foam roller seems to have created a lot of bubbles in the paint. I hoped to see these pop on their own, but after about 45 minutes they were still there. And there were a lot of them. So I made the command decision to use a dry brush to tip the entire surface to pop the bubbles. This worked, but left a fairly rough surface, particularly where the paint was a little more set up.

Mistake 2: after allowing the paint to cure for a few days, I decided to see if I could sand down the rough spots with 220. This worked pretty well, but in a few spots (mostly the junction between the skeg and the bottom) where the paint was a little thicker it wasn't dry all the way through and made a mess.

So now I am sitting here contemplating how to proceed. I called the Top Secret folks and asked about the roller. The gentleman who I spoke to recommend a high quality 3/8 inch nap roller (not foam). So, I plan to give things a few more days to more completely dry in the corners and then sand it down to be reasonably smooth again, then reapply with the new rollers.

Not quite sure what to do about painting those inside corners, since it is kind of natural for the paint to be thick there and I'm not sure how long it will take it to cure enough to allow it to be coated over. (Have others attached their skegs after painting?)

Not happy about all the work that I put into the surface prep going out the window.

Any words of wisdom or encouragement?

I had similar issues with SM. I thinned a little more than 10% and that seemed to help some. Additionally, I tried putting on thinner coats and that helped some as well. There is a very small window, in my experience, to put down more coats. Too little time and you end up with paint that takes forever to cure. Too much time and it orange peels badly. Be prepared for all of the above. I let coats cure about 12 hours, scuff the surface and recoat. I used the 3/8 high quality mohair rollers on the bottom and they worked well. For the top and sides I switched to the cheapo foam jobs and they worked well too. I've also found the more color that's in the paint the thinner it needs to be. After you build up several coats do a very good sanding job and it will help reduce the amount of finish sanding that needs to be done.

Hope that helps.

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As a single part paint, expect it to take up to a month to really cure hard, although sandability will occur a lot faster. As you have seen, if you have inconsistent thickness your cure time varies. Give a few more days. You might want to consider tipping off your roll ons with a foam brush. This will remove the bubbles that rollers leave.

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Not much help now, but...
I watched a video on painting this type of paint on an inverted boat hull similar to our types. He rolled on about 12" strips from keel to chine and immediately tipped with the brush from the wettest edge back towards the previous strip, before proceeding onto the next strip. The finished product looked great. If I can find it again I will post the link.

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Be sure to apply the SM very thin. Try the 3/8 rollers but you still might have to tip with a foam brush, stop rolling every two minutes and tip it. The hotdog rollers worked fine for me. I thinned 12%
I painted my boat bottom two years ago with SM and I also recently bought a little more to recoat my deck, the SM of more recent order seemed to bubble much easier and required tipping where tipping was more optional before.

For others who may be deciding on paint its not too late do yourself a favor and skip right past Supermarine paints, youll have less headaches.
I've used 3 marine paint brands now. I really like the Interlux best.

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"Nothing screams poor craftsmanship like wrinkles in your duct tape."

I applied SM1000 just as trackhappy describes with some slight modifications. Thinning 15-20% is a must. Rolling with the "hotdog" 4" long foam roller keel to chine in 12-18" widths with MINIMAL amount of material on the roller. IMMEDIATE tipping at 90 degrees (bow to stern) with a foam brush. On the next strip start 4" away from the previous strip and work away first then back to a slight overlap. This keeps the edges feathered to a thinner coat. Again tip at right angles. I gave each coat 24 hours dry time and went over the whole boat with scotch bright and a tack rag dampened with SM1000 prior to starting the next coat. Thats what worked for me. Good Luck!

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Excellent advice, I will absolutely try this! Also I think I'll thin to 15% this time (as suggested) and I think I'll stick with the foam hot dog rollers for now.

When tipping with the foam brush were you able to use a single brush for the whole boat, or did you use several? I'm assuming that a wider brush (2 1/2 or 3 inches would work).

I'd love to see the video of this, so if anyone can find it I'd much appreciate.

Thanks for everyone for taking the time to reply!

Sorry, no video. Had my hands full and the wife was kind enough to help with the tipping. I used a 3" foam brush. Also, there are higher quality "hotdog" rollers out there. (Don't recall the name of them but I think they were purchased at True Value.) If either the roller or brush gets saturated, discard it. A point of interest; When thinned, the SM1000 would 'squeek' during the tipping. Dry to touch in an hour. THIN COATS.

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I want to find out a little more about how to achieve the thin coat. When I use these rollers with my paint tray, the paint has been fairly thick (hopefully will be a little bit thinner next time when I go to 15-20%). The paint seems to be rather heavy on the roller, which lead to a need to really push the paint around on the surface to distribute it to thin it out. Will the thinner paint solve this problem, or are there any other tricks to control the amount of paint on the roller?

My paint tray (with disposable liner) has a few rather course bumps in it which don't really seem to help get an even coating on the roller. I'm thinking perhaps a different kind of paint tray would help a bit.

Bergy, it was Trackhappy who said he recalled seeing a video on this technique, that is what I was hoping to find.

I used a 6" wide disposable tray with the bumps on it. When I wet the roller, I only dipped 1/8" maybe. Then used the bumps to spread it out. when I applied it to the boat, it didn't cover complete with one revolution of the roller. I worked it out with somewhat random strokes ending with keel to chine. I did see a West System video on spreading barrier coat. That is similar to what I did.

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"It's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
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This is a good video of roll and tipping with Interlux brightsides. He is using a regular brush not a foam one but otherwise the same basic method.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-SGcSlN ... re=related

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"Nothing screams poor craftsmanship like wrinkles in your duct tape."

Wow, that is impressive. I aspire to that. I even like the nice, calm music he is playing while painting.

I saw an excellent video on this (I think someone on here had posted it a few years back, but I can't find it)

This guy was doing a very large dark green sail or canal boat and it came out beautiful....best video I've seen, but I can't find it.

Anyone else remember it?

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Thanks VU. That is the one I was referring to. I hate him so much making that finish look so easy....

Anyhow, I asuume that technique would apply to SM1000 or any similar topcoat. I note the slow, even speed he rolls at, and only 1 pass with the brush. The brush is foam but I cant see if he keeps it wet between uses somehow.

After a little more sanding and some serious dust control activities I guess I will be finding out.

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