Just a quick one! Boat painting.
I'll no doubt add more to this post by way of a part two (or more!)
So paint on boats, No#1 it protects the steel from corrosion. There's absolutely no point in having a nice shapely new boat with loads of thought into how it's going to be used, and not protect the bugger from the nasty British weather.
Up until Friday the colour scheme for NB Ernest was pretty well decided. Quite an industrial colour scheme with a red raddle type mat paint for cabin top, hand rails, decks and probably foredeck and cants. Cabin sides were to be a nice darker grey and a lighter mid grey singular rear panel would have the boat name in large, bold, fairly square tug suitable font at the rear.
Decent paint for narrowboats costs a decent amount. The Aircraft blue that we've just bought two 750ml tins of for touching up the gunwales of NB Lois Jane cost us £33.95 each, that's just over £3 per square metre per coat! How many coats? I don't know, I haven't the foggiest. It's no surprise that getting a pro to paint a boat does cost a little bit to a lot, depending on who's doing what to it.
Now we've always wanted to have a paint scheme that was simple for us to keep looking fairly good. We've tried really hard and done pretty well to keep LJ's painted cabin looking nice through the years mainly because the only option would have been a full repaint. We hope NB Ernest will be a little easier to repaint in sections when we really need it rather than pay, probably £10,000 (some are up to £15,000) for a pro paint job that we're paranoid about damaging.
So a couple of hours ago I arrived back from my weekend training/intro 'how to paint you're boat' course run by THE Phil Speight. Phil is an absolute master coach painter, classical sign writer and decorative artist extraordinaire! This fella has been hand painting the important bits of narrowboats and the odd rather impressive vehicle for decades, as well as being involved with video production on narrowboat history and heavily involved with the production of first class coach painting and sign writing paints and protective finishes. Phil's current job is a 1913 bread van painted using, and for Craftmaster Paints, a company that he has an awful lot of history with.
So what did I learn on this classroom based weekend hosted by Bollington Wharf up in Cheshire? Well an absolute load from how to look after and repair damaged paint, to prep and application of the nine plus coats needed on a new boat. I'm not going into depth about what Phil says to do... go on his course you tight buggers! £135 for the weekend including all the tea and biccies you can manage and thoroughly hearty home made lunch.
Phil did take us through the process for most coverings and I took a few pics of his progress once it got interesting on day two with his taste of what he thinks any methodical boater with half a brain (and his next course of sign writing) can achieve with enough time in a paint dock.
And yes he thinks we can do it, more importantly he really wants the tradition carried on.
Hmm decisions decisions
Our boat has Phil Speight signwriting as well as his roses and castles. We fell in love with this paintwork and it was probably a major deciding factor when we chose this boat above others.
ReplyDeleteThe main paint job was by one of the people he trained. Happily after 7 years it still looks the business.
That's the thing isn't it. It costs a lot of money but it gained a sale for the previous owners and thats got to be worth a bit. He's a really decent guy too :)
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