Sunday 22 May 2011

Painting

After scraping and sanding comes painting. Yesterday John scraped the gunwhales and rubbing strakes to reveal paint that was flaking off but very little rust, to our relief. I undercoated the lockers and the foredeck.
Today I aimed to paint a top coat on the foredeck and lockers, but the wind was so fierce and the air so full of willow seed that I abandoned any idea of top coat and concentrated on the port gunwhale and strakes which I could reach from the jetty. Having daubed these with anti-rust yesterday I added a coat of primer today, crawling on all fours and dabbing the brush at likely spots.
The flurries of willow seed  ...

... (picture from Wild About Britain) were beginning to subside, caught in spiders' webs and in nooks and crannies of the hull, but sudden winds brought out more flurries so any wet painted surface would have become a furry coat in minutes.
A chap along the way says we should just leave it and rub it off when the paint has dried. He says you can do this with flies caught in wet paint too - leave them to die then break their legs off. Sounds rather unkind - but what else can you do? Answer: leave further painting till another day....

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