I'm all done fiberglassing the outside of the boat and will be sanding it up smooth. When I graphite the bottom do I want to mask up the sides so the graphite has a nicely finished edge, or do I just put a rough edge on the graphite and finish it up nicely when I paint the outside? If I do mask it up now, what is the best way to mark a nice even line that runs about four inces above the chine?

Danny

In reply to "Graphite on bottom", posted by Danny on Mar 4, 2001:
>I'm all done fiberglassing the outside of the boat and will be sanding it up smooth. When I graphite the bottom do I want to mask up the sides so the graphite has a nicely finished edge, or do I just put a rough edge on the graphite and finish it up nicely when I paint the outside? If I do mask it up now, what is the best way to mark a nice even line that runs about four inces above the chine?
>

Gougeon Bros sells a product (they used to call)
PeelPly that can be used for masking lines.
If you are going to paint the boat, don't worry about
it. Just let the paint spray around the chine. Any paint
that oversprays to the bottom of the boat will scrape off
right away anyway.

If you are making a natural finish boat, and want to
smooth off the bottom with a graphite powder finish,
I think a rough transition right at the chine would
work just fine.

You could make a sharp-line mask, with peelply, but
it would be a lot of work. And I'm not sure how good
it would look.
>Danny

There's a young guy over in Livingston MT,
who's making the worlds prettiest driftboats
right now. They start at 8 grand and he's a year
behind in his orders.

When I tried commercial driftboat building in the
early 1980's the market was rowdy fishing guides,
like myself: everybody wanted a bargain.

Now its 20 years later and the silicon valley high
rollers all want a driftboat, and 10 grand is peanuts.
Anyway, the Jason Cajun boat I saw today had a nice
sharp, mask line between a graphite powder bottom
finish and a white paint sides (and natural finished
inside).

I'm not sure how Jason did it, but if it was me,
I'd run a graphite/epoxy finish up 5-6" past the chine,
and let it run wild. Then I'd mask the spray job over
top of the black graphite, using standard auto-body
techniques.