So, as I mentioned in my "Wood Veneer" post, our Osprey is nearing completion and we're beginning to think about finishing options. Here are options that we're throwing around:

1) Paint it yellow w/black detail strip along sheer.

Drawback: no wood showing.

2) Bright finish it with lots o' layers of lovingly applied varnish and a black detail strip along sheer.

Drawback: paraphrasing Louise, "It'll look too much like a solid piece of wood. If it were a stripper that would be different."

3) Yellow stripe(s) (about 6" to 1' wide) with bright finishing everywhere else.

3a) We were thinking about a wide stripe either in a spiral from the bow to stern or two symetric spirals that begin joined at the bow, cross each other in the center of the deck and on the keel, and rejoin at the keel. Tough to describe...

3b) A pair of stripes which begin as one at the point of the bow deck, curve around the cockpit with the bottom edge of the stripe dipping below the waterline and rejoin at the point on the stern deck (this would leave wood visible around the cockpit and below the stripe on the bow and stern, I've seen deck stripping patterns that look like we're imagining).

Drawback: We have to form a smooth boundry for the stripe and mask it off, then perform the magic necessary to get a smooth edge as we remove the masking. If we do the single spiral, she'd have to learn to roll. ;-)

Questions and Issues:

What do you think of the options (or are my descriptions so confusing that you can't even begin to picture what I'm talking about)?

We were considering using powder to pigment the epoxy and using pigmented epoxy for the stripe or for painting the boats. We're familiar with epoxy (by now) and are confident that we can bend it to our will; we also know that it will stick to the sanded hull. Has anyone used this stuff? I guess that we can get a lead oxide that will produce a yellow color. We'd also have to varnish over it since the colored epoxy will still need UV protection.

I know that I asked about paint before, but we are also interested in the possibility of using a yellow paint (anything that will stick without a primer and does not require baking).

I think that I'll call SystemThree and try to get powder samples to see what pigmented apoxy looks like...

Thanks for any comments or opinions!

Later,

Tim.