Awlgrip - Problems with topcoats

You might find useful information in the following thread:
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/technical-discussion/13743-hull-paint-alexseal-awlgrip.html

I personally paint my boats with Alexseal yacht coatings and I have absolutely no problems. The painting of the boats is done in the UK. If you require further information, please let me know.

My boats are GRP and I do use the entire Alexseal system, primers, colours and topcoats.

If you wish to speak to the company which paints my boats, please let me know and I will provide you with their contact details. They are a specialized company in the UK and they have vast experience with both systems, Alexseal and Awlgrip.They paint GRP, wood and metal hulls.

Best regards, TK

These are the two boats I have painted with the Alexseal system:

Thanks .......I sent you a PM with the details of the company which did the paint work.

awlgrip

In March of this year I seen two boats finished with awlgrip at a yard outside Ft Myers, I actually watched the application, came out like a mirror on both boats.

dennismc, have you seen them since? from what i heard, the issues come out after some months? i'm also interested to know if they have been resolved.

Awlgrip

My first visit was in Feb and the boat sprayed was about 48 ft, then I was back in late march and a 65 ft was starting to get sprayed, there were no comments from the sprayer as regards the original 48, by the time I left the 65 was sparkling. spraying Awlgrip is not the easiest job to do really well, my experience before watching the above , was 2 coats maybe 3 max, this guy was a 5 coat process, more like misting it on, he indicated he could get better control of thickness etc that way, results seem to bear out his process....
YMMV

Awlgrip

Hey All,
The problems I've been seeing the last years with Awlgrip Top Coats (and that's all of them) is in the Reflections.
Yes, they did have some problems with the Orange Peel and Pin Holes, which were evidently caused by manufacturing problems.
But the reflection problems are seemingly caused by recipe changes.
What you see now (and it's getting harder to find a boat with the old recipes!!) is a reflection of Jumpiness. When looking at the boat from straight on, and not directly in the sun, it looks like the entire surface was hit with a big ball peen hammer. The reflections looking from a normal DOCK angle are jumpy. Some worse, and some better.
I've seen this in both the G+H line as well as the Awlcraft line.
Gloss and smoothness up close, still look amazing, it's the reflections and DOI from a short distance that's disturbing.

And yes, this problem gets progressively worse with time.
The new HS seems to get this problem even faster than the other 2.
I'm told that there is a new line coming, but have no references as of date.
Hope to have given some light, and am most interested to hear any comments.

If it's Owl Creek boatyard over there. The painter that paints boats there has done really nice paint jobs for years and years.....I've seen a few really nice ones come out of there as well.

Yep, that's where it was, I also sprayed myself some Awlgrip on my 70 ft here in BC 2 yrs ago without any orangepeel or strange reflections, just the odd run...

Yeah, orange peel is usually caused by too quick of an accelerator, not enough reducer, or the painter not flowing/spraying the paint correctly. Runs are usually caused by spraying it too wet or too much reducer.

Yep, paint was 21 seconds, the gun went bad, had to switch to backup, nozzle was for hibuild, a tad too large for topcoat but turned out ok as was smaller areas