The dory is now painted. although not to showroom finish I think it looks a lot, lot better than before. The main point is that as I row past onlookers I feel I am in a nice boat, as opposed to prevoiusly when I felt my boat was fairly unattractive. After epoxy I then faired with epoxy/microsphere paste applied with a scraper. Then 2 coats of water based undercoat, and then 3 coats of acrylic water based paint on top of that.

I was happy with the waterbased primer, it sanded very well. The primer permitted the hull, particularly the outside to be much much smoother than was the case with epoxy only. I sanded between each layer of primer and between each application of epoxy fairing paste. Yes polyurethane paint would have been better, but I suspected that the price could not be justified. Afterall the paint is not the main water barrier, that is the epoxy. Thus the paint serves to improve apprearance and protect the epoxy from UV. I chose the colours based on paints I had at home. I would have preferred red/brown paint over cottage green, but as this would cost money I decided against it as I had cottag green to hand. The inside is a light grey, made by mixing the outside grey colour 5:1 with an acrylic gloss my housemate found in the dumpster, I thought that pure white would have too much glare.

I chose to paint the ribs a different colour to the inside hull. Not sure if this was worth the effort. To get a good deliniation between 2 colours was difficult. Perhaps I could have used tape for this, but did not have the patience. To sum up, painting the dory was well worth while, it has transmformed the boat in terms of appearance.