That made sense when I first read it but now I'm not so sure. Taken to the extreme, why fix any scratches below the waterline that don't affect the gelcoat?. Almost all the scratches on a canoe are below the waterline unless you are doing whitewater and scrape the sides on rocks.
So the question arises: "Why bother?" Nobody sees the scratches when the boat is in the water. I guess it's a point of pride---at seeing a nice looking canoe when you, as the owner and/or user, gets 'up close and personal' while loading/unloading, tipping over for the night(although I am told that is mostly a Cdn habit)

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Old canoeists never die---they just smell that way.

Good point about the semi-futility of painting bottom scratches. Looking back at the hulls I have painted over the past few years they fall into a couple different categories.

Boats with visibly fugly patches and repairs. This

PA270053 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

To this

PC110015 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Boats with serious gouges. On each side from being wedged between two river rocks for a stationary poler break. Thanks for rocking side to side Tom.

P6130015 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

To this

P6160010 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Eventually to this

P9060003 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Gel coated boats that were so horribly UV faded that no amount of sanding, buffing and waxing would cure. This

P9060001 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

To this

P6280013 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Boats that had been previously painted. Sometimes with spray paint. Sometimes by me. This

PC190009 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

To this

P1230043 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Boats where major repairs were needed and I wanted the distinctive under-gunwale stripe and bling for aesthetic reasons or easy ID. This

P1240027 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

To this

P2130015 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

The bottom of my Monarch has a thousand superficial white scratches in the red gel coat, most of them acquired during two especially daunting trips, but those scratches are nowhere near needing filling and painting.

P5250038 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

For hulls that need it, whatever your judgement of “need” may be, a couple coats of paint rolled, wet sanded and tipped, may be the easiest bang for buck of any boatwork refurbishment.



I’m ‘merican, I leave my canoe upright and then wonder why it is full of water, leaves and pine needles after a storm

Nice work. So have you ever refinished mainly to get rid of scratches?

A bit of history here---I have repainted this canoe twice, the first time with an expensive 2 part epoxy and the second time with Tremclad. I didn't see much diff. I had scuffed holes in the keel both bow and stern. In the repair process I installed my own DIY skid plates---firbreglass cloth soaked in epoxy. I then tapered the sides of the skid plates using Bondi body filler and repainted, hiding the plates. This year, for no apparent reason, the filler became severely cracked. I gouged out the damaged area and refilled it, which gave me an urge to repaint. Apparently I did not fix many scratches or blemishes on the second repaint. This time around I thought I would try to do a better job. I guess part of this is driven by the 'keep up with the Joneses' urge. My fishing-canoe bud refinished his canoe and did quite a good job on it. So I guess there is no real reason to fix the bottom scratches other than pride and a touch of jealousy. Nevertheless, I have begun to fix the scratches---pix to follow...eventually......maybe!

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Old canoeists never die---they just smell that way.

Kinda. Sorta. Maybe. There is a difference between “get rid of” and “hide the visibility of”. Even three coats of paint will not fill in every scratch unless they are very shallow; the scratches won’t be as visible, but it the right light/glare they will still be apparent.

I have needed to lay a coat of epoxy on a few hulls before painting when I had done major repairs. A rolled and tipped epoxy coat, wet sanded before painting, did a better job of filling in the scratches, but even with two coats of topside paint on the cured/sanded epoxy some (far fewer) scratches remained.

Once painted a wet sanded epoxy coat often does a decent job of filling in some spider cracks. I’m guessing faint spider cracks are much narrower than scrapes and scratches. And maybe not as deep, or just easier to epoxy fill?

Reducing the scratches might add a little speed or glide to a blemished hull, racers that that care, but that improvement was only apparent to me on one peculiar canoe.

The Malecite was a protopype from Mad River. One of a kind, an ultralight Kevlar Malecite with IQ Gunwales, a combination that made no sense, the IQ gunwales are heavy. Beyond that MRC had used too thin a “skin coat”. That white skin coat was so thin that the weave of the underlying fabric was showing through in a few areas when new, especially at the stems.

Over time that coat of whatever skin became thinner and thinner across the hull surface and the increasingly exposed weave became a dirt magnet. The Malecite was dirt ugly, impossible to keep clean and seemed increasingly slow. Or maybe I just don’t like paddling dirty boats; pollen, road grime and the like can’t help with laminar flow.

P9211228 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I don’t think that decreasing speed and glide was simply my imagination; with the weave largely exposed the hull must have presented more wetted surface and drag. The last time I paddle the Malecite before repairs was with a friend group and I was struggling to bring up the rear. It felt like I was paddling a barge with no glide.

I scoured the hull with a bristle brush and Scotchbrite pad to remove the weave embedded dirt and the whatever the skincoat was essentially vanished even before I wet sanded it, leaving golden Kevlar. After the epoxy coat, first coat of topside white going on.

PA261301 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I had already bought white topside paint and learned a lesson. I should have waited until the hull was scoured, washed and wet sanded to choose a paint color. Fighting Lady Yellow would perhaps have been a better choice to match the Kevlar color beneath.

https://www.google.com/search?q=pettit+ ... 2M&vssid=l

But the epoxy and two paint coats did thoroughly fill the exposed weave. Wet sanded after the first coat of topside white.

PA311313 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

The Malecite looked like new with the second coat of paint and, more importantly - not just my imagination - the speed and glide was restored. All dressed up it is again a good looking canoe.

PB081340 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Since a quart of paint will usually lay 2+ coats on a 16’ canoe I figure each coat was less than pound, including the epoxy coat. A pint is a pound, two pints per quart, etc. I wouldn’t want to add 3lbs to a UL Kevlar canoe, but the Malecite already had heavy IQ gunwales.

Soloized, fully dressed, with utility/sail thwart, foot brace, knee bumpers, D-rings, improved seat and etc the Malecite had a finished weight of 55lbs. I neglected to weigh it before I started, but that outfitting usually weighs about 2lbs, the epoxy and two paint coats, a pint each, added less than 3lbs.

Would I rather the Malecite weigh 50lbs? Absolutely, the standard Kevlar and gel coat version was speced at 50lbs, and the ultra-light Kevlar/PVC version (per MRC “skin coat” not “gel coat”, Kevlar, S-glass, PVC foam diamond) weighed 40lbs.

ever use any of this stuff to fill in cracks or deep scratches? thx
https://www.homehardware.ca/en/1275g-sp ... /p/8659515

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Old canoeists never die---they just smell that way.

When I first started repairing old canoes, think 1980’s, I used whatever materials I could buy at the auto parts store, which meant poly resin, E-glass and, yes, Bondo.

I don’t know if it was the same Bondo back then but it was soon apparent that any place on a canoe filled with Bondo that was at all flexible needed to be covered with glass and epoxy, otherwise the Bondo had a tendency to crack open. Formulation of Bondo 40 years later may be more flexible, I do not know.

I still sometimes use JB-Weld or PC-7 epoxy to fill areas if that spot will later be covered with fabric and epoxy. A Mad River Courier with deep dents and areas worn into the foam core at the stems for example.

P2230021 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P2230022 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

I could have filled the areas with thickened epoxy and tried to keep it from creeping down the sides, but since it was getting Dynel skid plates I used PC-7 epoxy packed into the voids and smoothed out with peel ply.

P2250020 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P2250017 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

That epoxy paste needed a little sanding to make it flush and fair, but once covered with Dynel fabric skid plates I had no worries about the stiff epoxy putty cracking or breaking away.

P2260005 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P3030024 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

P3030025 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

Filling voids that won’t later be covered with cloth and epoxy I put my faith in G/flex, which has “flex” in the name and I know to be tenacious as hell.

Well I managed to get back to the canoe repair after being diverted into other activities for a while. I have use a combination of JBweld and Bondo spot putty so far: JBweld for the deeper dings and scrapes, Bondo for the shallow ones. The whitish spots are JBweld and those that look pink are the spot putty (It's actually brown in reality). The 2 part Bondo body filler that I had used a few years ago cracked this year. A bit odd that it too this long to crack. That is why I got into this particular project. I don't think the spot putty will crack-----the layer is too thin.

I need to do a more careful inspection to see what scratches and blemishes that I missed. In my experience small imperfections that are not very apparent tend to show up as I paint. That is true for painting inside walls of the house but esp when doing a canoe. Then it's on to sanding.

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Old canoeists never die---they just smell that way.

Was that the marine JB Weld? Definitely not the JB Weld I have used, it mixes grey. I’ll be curious, after some bumps and bruises, which holds up better, the Bondo or the JB Weld.



True that. Every teeny blemish shows up more vividly once painted. Lots of RO sanding with a foam interface pad, 220, 320 or continuing finer, especially on the JB Weld and Bondo areas, before painting. Once the first coat of paint goes on any remaining imperfections will become more visible.

Some painted imperfections can be re-sanded, but that means removing some of the first paint coat.

I am hesitant to suggest things I haven’t tried, but the shine of gloss paint is the culprit in showing every blemish. I wonder if a Satin paint, with less shine, would hide better?

Looking forward to eventually seeing the painted canoe. I have no doubt it will look 100% better.

A small correction here. It wasn't Bondo per se. It is called Dynatron which is also made by 3M. Maybe it's a 'new and improved' compound or maybe it's just re-branding.

I don't think I'll ever be able to assess which holds up better. It rarely gets used other than for day trips fishing with a bud. I have been doing a lot less canoeing than when I was younger. I guess part of my motivation is because my fishing bud redid his and did a great job, so there is a 'keeping up the Jonses' aspect to it.

What is RO sanding and what's the advantage of a foam pad? TIA



Have you come of with any trick to see the minor imperfections before painting rather than afterward? I thought that maybe I would wait until dark and shine a spotlight at a low angle.

When I first repainted the canoe with a 2 part epoxy I must have ended with 1000 grit because I found some of that sandpaper with re paint on it in my stash. It must have been what I saw recommended at the time.

_________________

Old canoeists never die---they just smell that way.

Random Orbital sander. I have (stops to count) seven sanders in the shop. For most boatwork purposes a random orbital is hard to beat. And for a lot of other sanding, even on flat surfaces the results are smoother than most other powered sanders.

Two are RO’s, one corded, one battery op; if I need but a few seconds of ZZZZZ-ZZZZZ I grab the battery op one every time. The corded one with an interface pad always for large jobs like sanding a canoe hull, and then always hooked up to the cyclonic dust-extractor/shop vac cart.

P6130002 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

The dust extractor is a simple cyclonic lid on a 5-gallon bucket hooked up in-line with a shop vac. 90+% of the dust and debris falls into the bucket, so the shop filters (and vac itself) last longer, but the biggest advantage is far, far less airborne dust in the shop. And on me.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Dustopper-P ... lsrc=aw.ds

At the time it was the best $39 I ever spent on shop stuff. Would buy again at $60.

Oops, got off on a tangent.

A foam interface pad is a hook and loop foam pad with 5 or 8 holes matching the RO holes, placed between the hard flat surface of the sander and the sanding disk of grit choice.

https://www.amazon.com/Tockrop-Thicknes ... 439&sr=8-4

With just the hard flat RO surface sanding curves (think chines and especially stems) on a canoe it is a delicate task, the hard flat sander surface sits against the curved hull like |(, so the sander is only in contact with the hull on a very small area of the sanding disk. Using the interface pad the foam contours to the curves more ( (.

Using an interface pad makes a huge difference in not oopsie sanding too far down on curved surfaces. And the interface pad doesn’t wear out like the sanding disks, I’ve been using the same two interface pads for years.



The only pre-paint “trick” I can think of is tactile, running an ungloved hand along the surface feeling for disturbances. Might need to wash the hull first, and glare off a wet hull might help; after the first paint coat I use the glare from shop fluorescent (now LED) lights, kind of scuffling along Groucho-walking beside the hull at different angles to reveal drips or sags, which visibly pop in glare.

So that I can find those drips or sags when not playing Groucho - stand up and the minor ones vanish from sight “Where was that?” - I flag them with a little Post-it note for sanding before the 2nd paint coat.

1000 grit is mirror finish stuff. I (hand) wet sand between paint coats, depending on the quality of my rolling & tipping, 220 or 320 at first, then 400 or 600 at finest, 600 only if I have managed a superb 2nd or 3rd coat and just want to lightly scuff the hull for an additional coat.

Wet sanding can be done indoors but easiest a warm weather hose job, and is oddly revealing. I wet sand canoes the same way I paint them, one side at a time from keel line to gunwales. The “revealing” part is that any sanding holidays will still bead water, while the sanded areas will rinse dull streaky flat. Far side yet to be sanded.

P6280019 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

So I actually wet-sand each side twice, the second time spot-sanding any areas that still bead water.