Me and My Boat: Yes, Trim Can Make Your Boat Look Bad

Today is January 15^th, 2010.  Last night I did some detail painting on the trim.  The deck and cockpit are white, the hull is Regal Red but the trim is still crappy looking.  Tim had said, “Paint it black”.  I wasn’t sure how that would look?

When I got off of work I went over to Tim’s house to BS and have a couple beers.  We went out into his garage where Tim showed me what he had done to his mast.  It was bent, and he straightened it, for the most part.

Anyway, I looked at his boat which has roughly the same color scheme as mine and noticed that it has black trim.  It actually looked pretty good and provided a good contrast between the two sections of the boat (upper and lower).  Having seen an example, I decided it would look okay on my boat.  So, I stopped by Menards on my way home to buy a pint of black paint and a couple brushes.  While I was there I also purchased a small can of bright yellow paint, thinking the boat might look better if there was a little more color.  Yellow and black make…..

On one side I painted the aluminum trim first and then the rubber part.  On the other side of the boat I painted the rubber fist and then the aluminum.  The difference?  Well, with the aluminum painted first, I was able to paint the rubber black without accidently brushing the aluminum.  Thus, it was a cleaner job, and came out looking okay with just a few spots that needed some touch-up.  It’s the way the aluminum and rubber piece are connected that facilitated ease of painting in that sequence.  When I painted the rubber part first and then the aluminum I got yellow paint all over the rubber section of the trim, with the effect of making the entire thing look really messy.  It will require a lot of touch-up.  Again, it is the way the aluminum and rubber are joined that contributed to the end result.  No, actually I’m just really bad at detail painting.

Black Trim

Now, one side is yellow and black.  Yellow on the aluminum, with the rubber part painted black.  On the other side, the trim is orange (kind of) on the aluminum with the rubber painted black.  I will have to go out and look at it and see if I like the color scheme or not.  One thing I do know is that Regal Red and Bright Yellow do not make orange.  Instead, they produce a dark orange tinted pigment that looks odd.  When a small amount of white is added it brings the concoction close to a salmon color.  That is what I went with.  However, like I said, I will have to go look at it and see if I like it or not.  Fortunately, a small can of paint is pretty cheap.

Inevitably, I will be going to Menards again for more stuff.  My next run will be primarily for interior paint.  That is, I will be purchasing exterior house paint for the interior of the boat.  That seems logical doesn’t it? 

On the interior I am going to go with blue and white, the same color scheme that I originally was going to use on the hull.  There are two really good reasons why I chose those colors.  White, because it is already the color of the interior bulkheads and looks as if it was the original color of the entire cabin from deck to overhead.  Like how I’m starting to use the appropriate maritime lingo?  So, if I decide I don’t want to go spelunking into the dark recesses of the boat, at least the paint will match.  The blue will be painted on the woodwork I.E. the bunks and shelves.  Blue also happens to match the padding that I am going to put into the boat.

I have a big box of floor padding that I ended up with from a Rotary function.  It’s the stuff you find on the floor at inside playgrounds for little kids.  In fact, that is exactly where I go it from.  Once the padding is cut to fit the interior bunks it will add some cushioning, possibly insulation, and in a worst case scenario, flotation. If it floats, one can only assume?  The padding is all around good stuff for the purpose, even if it doesn’t float.  Two out of three isn’t bad.