It's difficult to believe that this would be an improvement
on wetsanding with 1000 grit. But it's a long tough roud to
get up to where ws'ing w/1k gr will do any good, whereas it
may be that burnishing with bronze wool can bring
improvement right out of the box.

Ringmaster wrote:
In the past I've never done either.

I've faired and templated a couple of boats. It's a *lot* of
work, and a dirty & tedious job... enough of a PITA that one
should consider hiring somebody else to do it... except that
it's also extremely painstaking work and there's only one
way to make sure it's done right.

We started using 800 grit wetsand on the 470 as a psych move
in the perpetual arms race (that boat hull never touched
anything except the water or it's fleece-lined jacket) and I
decided that it really was smoother. Been using 1000 grit
for years but you have to work up to it, as use of any other
grit will leave grooves that it takes forever to remove with
1000 grit. This leaves a surface that feels as smooth as
polished marble.

.... I was using Awlgrip Allstar Gold
Label and rolled it on. This time around I decided to switch to Vivid
which is a hard multi season paint that can be wet sanded and/or
burnished. I was happy with the results but the true test will be next
year to see if it is truly a multi season paint.


We used Petit Trinidad hard finish paint, not really a
racing bottom but hey it's on a tugboat! After three years
it was OK, only had a diver go over it about 4 or 5 times
during that period. With a regular diver it could probably
have gone another year.

It will be interesting to hear what you report after a year
on Vivid... obviously it's a pretty fast bottom finish.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King