Porch paint for the cabin?

[Captain_Kirk]

Has anyone used porch paint or something similar for painting their cabin? I'm looking to save some money instead of paying for "marine" paint. I've heard some people have tried this with pretty good results. The rest of my boat is painted with Interlux, but if I can get decent results for $30 vs $130 I'll take it.

[grady]

I would not do it. Painting takes too much labor to skimp on product. You only want to paint it once.

Why not use cheap auto paint if you are trying to save a couple of bucks.

[Russ]

I used it to paint the raw fiberglass under the cabin seats. Better than the raw shards of glass. Brightened it up also. For the inside of my galley (also raw glass) I sprayed on white enamel. Looks pretty good. For exposed visible surfaces, I would use paint made for that purpose.

[Ixneigh]

Some of the latex enamels are pretty good now. The oil based paints are not as good as they once were. We used to use rustoleum brand as a cheap paint on dinghys and things like that. I have even painted larger boats with latex house paint. I would not suggest it though. Use a decent marine paint. I used interlux on my 2 year old M above the "strake" on the hull. Its held up well for a year of light use so far, and is easy to touch up, after those bad trailer moments. I would expect about five years from the paint. For decks, use the best paint there is. Painting the decks is MUCH more labor intensive then the hull. Some people even use awlgrip or other two part, professional quality paint. That is beyond my skill level. It is also possible (not for me personally ) to apply new gelcoating. There are some newer paints such as durabak, and truckbed liner paints that seem like they could be promising. I used durabak with nonskid for the areas where the decks had molded in nonskid. This paint holds up better then the black gelcoat does, in terms of fading.
To sum up, if its a boat you want to keep for a while, or get anything at all when you sell, use the marine quality paints.
Ix

[Captain_Kirk]

Thanks for the replies.

For the deck I'm using 2 coats of Interlux Pre-kote to prime the surface and then 3 coats of Interlux Brightside, 2 coats of Interlux Interdeck for the non-skid areas.

For the sides I plan on doing Pre-kote and Brightside (white) and then probably a black stripe a few inches wide under the rub rail with Brightside.

For bottom paint I think I've decided on using Interlux Primocon primer and then Interlux Bottomkote NT, both are relatively cheap and since I'm going to trailer it in and out of the water it should be fine. I was originally going to go with the non-sanding primer Interlux makes, but when I called to ask them about using it on my boat they recommended the Primocon since I don't know what kind of bottom paint I currently have on my boat and Primocon works well for priming bottom paint onto unknown paint.

I suppose I will go ahead and use Brightside and Pre-kote for the cabin as well. For the storage areas under the seats I'll probably go with a cheaper paint though that I can just slap on.

Any recommendations on removing mold? I have my deck entirely stripped so when it would rain I've had to go cover it up and it leaked a little so it would build up humidity in there. I had the interior sanded, but from what I see it looks like mold really likes the surfaces I sanded. I was thinking about using just a regular boat wash for stains and overall cleaning for a coarse washing and then going back over all the surfaces with something like Interlux 202 fiberglass wash solvent. Sound like a decent plan of attack for that issue?

[Russ]

For mold: Bleach or something with bleach in it.
Some soap and bleach work wonders. Let it sit for a bit and scrub and rinse. There are some "boat" solutions, but I bet that they are just soap and bleach of some sort.

[Captain_Kirk]

Will the bleach hurt the fiberglass? It's bare fiberglass in some sanded areas and thin layer of paint in others.

[fouz]

Every time I wash the boat I use bleach. I tried just soap once it didn't do near as good. Bleach makes it much easier to clean.

[WASP18]

I use vinegar. It works and it's friendly to the environment.

[Russ]

It's very hard to hurt glass. Bleach won't hurt it. Pile it on. I use thompsons deck cleaner with bleach. Melts junk off and won't harm it.

[Captain_Kirk]

Great. Thanks!

This is my first time ever dealing with fiberglass so I'm fairly cautious about everything I try. haha