Hull Paint: Alexseal or Awlgrip

I'll add my two cents. I just painted the hull and house sides of my custom 70' MY with all Alexseal products. I'm very hands-on with my boat and had one very experienced guy helping me full time, quite a few 36 hour days, and two part time lackeys helping with heavy lifting from time to time. The project took about 8 weeks plus there was 4 weeks of downtime due to family issues. There is more to a paint system than the topcoat. I've had a few years experience with Awlgrip products, but decided to make the switch to Alexseal for various reasons. I'll go over my experience with each of the Alexseal products.

* Alexseal Cor Spec 135 chromate containing epoxy is excellent (alum hull). Adhesion seems good and it inhibits corrosion excellently. Some of the Alexseal products allow hotcoating with a similar product with no sanding in between if done so within 24 hours of the first product being applied. This saves quite a bit of time and in some areas we went from Cor Spec to Sprayfair within 3 or 4 hours with good results.

* The Fairing Compound 202 spreads well with good working time, but is very hard to sand. It required 36 grit on DA sanders. We called it "jb weld" because its hard and gray. I much prefer Awlfair or any expoxy resin with phenolic microballoons. We faired a LOT of surface area, including the entire house side of the port side of the boat which was brought all down to bare aluminum. For smaller repairs it should be a good product and non issue. Its a good idea to use the fairing compound to "rough in" the fairing and fill any big voids. Follow it up with a coat of Sprayfair sprayable fairing to finish the fairing. This saves considerable time.

* The coolest Alexseal product is their Sprayfair 328 Sprayable Fairing. We were able to spray the fairing with ordinary HPLV guns. I forget the orifice size, but if I were to do it again I would use a pressure pot. The Sprayfair is wonderful for corners and rounded contoured areas. Just spray it on and it sands wonderfully!

* Their Superbuild 302 high build epoxy is another good product. Again, we used cheap HPLV guns and got a good, thick, even coverage with about an 8 to 10" fan size. Superbuild is not the most sandable product, but it should be a non issue at this point if you did your fairing work right.

* Alexseal Finish Primer 442 is decent. It doesn't do a good job filling any pinholes but it does seal up the substrait in preparation for the topcoat. It is almost identical to Awlgrip's 545 primer.

* The Premium Topcoat 501 is a very good quality high solids polyurethane paint. Best results are seen with a pressure pot gun, but we sprayed with cheap HPLV guns and if you know what you are doing you can get just as good results. Air pressure and good compressor(s) is critical to achieve proper atomization, otherwise you will get an orange peel finish. Also, reducing at around 37.9% if my memory serves me, but I don't have my notes with me to look at. The paint can be brushed (roll and tip) or sprayed. The biggest strong points are it's durability and ability be repaired. Old-School Awlgrip has a pigment layer and a clear "shiny" layer that rises to the surface while curing. This makes Awlgrip very challenging to repair without doing an entire re-shoot of the area. Alexseal, on the other hand, can be spot repaired and easily wet sanded/buffed since the shine is linear throughout the paint. In comparison, I've never liked the softness of AwlCraft 2000 even though it is easy to apply and easy to repair. If you do so much as look at AwlCraft 2000 the wrong way you get scratches. I have my skiff rafted up to the boat most of the time and fender rash can be a problem with softer acrylic urethanes like AwlCraft 2000. The hardness of Alexseal is comparable to Awlgrip. Very tough, very hard. Last, but not least, I'm very happy with the finish. The optics of the reflection are better than areas on my boat that have been done with Awlcraft 2000 (flybridge and aft deck) or Awlgrip (transom). I will be repainting the Awlgrip/AwlCraft sections with Alexseal down the road. Personally, I see no reason to use Awlgrip. It is a dinosaur invented 40 years ago. Alexseal is a paint that can do everything quite well. Brushing, spraying, spot repairable, durable, consistent results/formulation, good product support and documentation available. I'm impressed.




Finished paint job.


Prior to brushing (roll and tip) boot stripe.


Slight orange peel in black paint around windows. Got a perfect finish on the hull and house sides.


House brought down to bare aluminum.

How many gallons of paint did you use? The primer, according to the website, only covers 63' per gallon. Is that right? Seems it should cover more than that. We are using the 302 Superbuild

I forget. I'd have to go over purchase receipts to verify, but 63 square feet of coverage sounds about right for Super Build. I found every bit of Alexseal info including mixing ratios and coverage to be very accurate. The whole point of Super Build is to build up a thick profile to even out any sub strait inconsistancies. Think of it as somewhere between fairing and primer. Super Build is semi-porous, so make sure you apply finish primer after laying up the Super Build. Also, sand within 24 hours of applying the primer or it will be very tough to sand.

I drive a 70 foot sailboat repainted 6 years ago with Algrip 3 years ago I started getting small gray spots on the top of the rub rail and transom.
I had a painter look at the transom thinking that it was over spray from nearby work he was conducting After 5 mints with a polisher we confirmed the gray was coming through the top coat and polishing was making the situation worse.
I had the transom repainted at a ship yard in the NE That paint failed in 3 places this year leaving 3 large gray patches that yet again I have had to have repainted.
Upon my return to the USA this spring I am having the Algrip rep come down and look at the issue, unless they come up with some believable answers I yacht will become another yacht no longer using Algrip A sister ship has just had its first paint job in 9 years and although it was showing its age non of these problems where apparent
Andy

How often are you polishing it? Every time you are polishing you are removing a little bit of material. Perhaps the original application wasn't enough coats? The grey spots sound like grey 545 primer if you have a dark hull, so effectively the topcoat has been burned through. Is this Awlgrip or Awlcraft 2000? "Technically", you shouldn't polish Awlgrip although it can be done, but only by somebody that really, really knows what they are doing.

There are two elements I think far more important than whether you choose Awlgrip or Alexseal or even another brand. First, is expertise of the person or persons doing the painting. They must know the product they are using and follow the exact instructions for that product. Each product is different and you can't attempt to apply them the same. Second, is care and again I recommend following the manufacturer's recommendations all the way. They've tested the products fully and learned the good and bad, what works and doesn't. Don't cut corners but don't exceed recommendations and do things the manufacturer advises against.

These two rules are true with all products, not just paint. I see people trying all sorts of things on teak, breaking every recommendation, then complaining what a pain it is and how it deteriorates so rapidly. The manufacturers not only have recommendations and products, but they have videos to show exactly how to care for it.

I am only using Arora polish which is applied on a DAMP sponge dries then polish of with a slow electric buffer 3 coats in 4 days nothing else for 6 months Worked fine for years also the top of the rub rail is to small for the buffer so finished by hand
When the yacht was painted they put 3 coats on 1/2 an hour between coats then the 4th coat was 50/50 Clear The hull has held up well but the flat surfaces and angled have developed these spots
As you say BURNT through is this normal? We polished the stern with a buffer to try and remove what we thought was Over spray from a job been use buy just made the matter worse

When your transom was re-sprayed was it just a scratch and shoot or did the applicator spray 545 , sand and then topcoat? Light color or dark color? You say the top coat failed in three places afterward, describe the failures please. Bleed through, fish eye, orange peel or delamination of the top coat from the primer. Also what material is the substrate? GRP, Aluminum , steel ?

Here is the link to the Awlgrip page for maintaining the top coat. I don't know which product you have, but there are a lot of "do not"'s on this page.

http://www.awlgrip.com/support-and-advice/topcoat-maintenance.aspx

There is also a Powerpoint presentation you can open from that page.

And here is the application instruction. http://www.awlgrip.com/support-and-advice/final-priming-and-topcoating.aspx

Notice the emphasis on no clear coat over white.

OK The yacht is Fiberglass. the yard sanded out the gray spots in the Dark Blue paint
They then sprayed the whole transom with 545 and then wet sanded to a suitable surface for top coat then sprayed with topcoat I am attaching a couple of photo's Hull not clean but the grey area's are very apparent as well as other spots coming through.

Yes But since Aurora Marine is a liquid polymer rather than a wax and applied using a damp sponge then polished of with a dry cloth ( or SLOW Buffer if you have one)
No issues on the hull except top of rub rail and sloping transom

From that somewhat blurry picture those don't look like typical burn throughs from overzealous buffing, more like poor topcoat adhesion or repairs that were improperly done. For your sake I really hope the 545 wasn't "wet sanded" prior to topcoating. That implies a grit profile finer than 320-400 which will not give enough "tooth" for a mechanical bond to hold the topcoat to the primer.

Maybe not wet sanded, but certainly NOT over buffed as done 90% of the time done by hand and those 3 larger grey spots got worser from early November to mid december when they where photographed No polishing was done at that time as we where in New England in the cold and all the other little spots with no pigment left in the paint I feel if i had left them they would have just got larger

And how many coats of topcoat did you spray on redoing the transom?

Have you yet read the information I linked to earlier?

Just to clarify, did those spots progressively get worse without any polishing or buffing being done or did they begin and show more each time it was done? In my experience 3 coats of G or H series "original" AwlGrip topcoat, thinned to yield acceptable levels of orange peel, is barely enough film thickness to cover spot primed areas of a different color. Any buffing at all would likely remove enough material to allow them to show through.

Yes thank you

A good question. but I am sure the yard would have done the usual 3 plus 1 with clear mixed in
When the original paint job was done Algrip where having issues with Fish eyeing and coagulation They sent reps to the yard and did many tests using the yard equipment and bran new guns hoses etc to eliminate the issues. White was not a problem only the darker colours I believe Every can # of there product was recorded and is in the yacht history at the yard

Yes the spots got worse and worse as if the sea water was washing the color out of the paint They looked great for about the first year after the work was done then the areas started to show what i could only describe as rings in the areas that had been ground down and filled then the color started to fade
When we repaired the stern this winter in St Thomas we found All-fair in the repairs under the 545 so the work had been done according to the manufactures specs
I have seen these spots on another dark blue yacht in the transom just like the ones on my yacht They subsequently repainted the whole yacht in Alex seal (that yacht is in NZ at the moment and I will not see it till next year) but I will email the skipper to see how the paint is holding up

I'm still somewhat unsure if the spots developed their issues after being buffed/polished or it happened without being touched. 545 will seal Awl-Fair on small spots but it (Awl-Fair) is very porous and best practice is to seal it first with a high build primer before the 545, much of which will be absorbed into the Awl-Fair when the first few coats are applied.

The grey spots in your photo don't look like the results of over-agressive buffing, but it could be a million different things. I'm convinced its a fault of preparation and application, not the physical Awlgrip product. You mentioned fisheyeing in one of your posts. Its possible the substrate was contaminated. Silicone is notorious for causing issues and just about nothing removes it. Also, the three spots almost look like "blotches" like the painter smudged a tack rag hard on the surface which left wax smudge prints which in turn caused poor/no adhesion of the topcoat in those smudge areas.

I'm just throwing out ideas out there. From your photo there isn't any way to 100% determine the cause. Before repainting the transom (again!) make sure the substrate is clear of all contaminants by using the prescribed wipe down solvents. I highly doubt Awlgrip had anything to do with it though.