Hello:

Just to give another opinion, I called Interlux about timining of bottom paint over their Interprotect 2000E. They recommend that bottom paint be applied within a few hours of the final expoxy coat. When it reaches the "thumbprint" point of dryness, the first coat of bottom paint should be applied to help form a chemical bond. If it has been a few days or weeks (1 week in my case) it is advised to sand (80-100) before application of the bottom paint. Although this won't give as good an adhesive bond. Another option would be to put another coat of expoxy on if hasn't been over two weeks. (This sounds like too much work and expense for me.)

Further they said as long as I was applying an Ablative paint, painting weeks before launch was no problem. They felt timing was an issue when applying "hard" bottom paint only. This isn't what others and my friends tell me, but I guess they should know.

Of course if it wasn't for conflicting advise, we'd get no advise... :-)