If there is some great thread on painting I missed in my searches, would a mod please make it a sticky thread since this seems to be a popular subject.

I have spent days researching painting. The general consensus is that prep is of the utmost importance or you can expect your nice paintjob to peel off in short order. Other than that, there does not seem to be much agreement

1) Scuffing - I have seen everything from scotch-brite pads to 24 grid sanding discs. I don't know about you but scotch-brite pads don't do much to my old paint, and I could grind a hole though my hull in about 5 seconds with 24 grit on my grinder, so the answer is probably somewhere in between.
2) Cleaning - Recommendations included Carwash, engine degreaser, laquer thinner, acetone. Suffice it to say we want it clean and then clean it again. Got to remove the oils from the aluminum rolling mill.
3) Chemical prep. Wide variation here. The Aircraft experts say to treat with alodine. Some say to prep with alumabright, others have recommended various kinds of acids, others say to use vinegar.
4) Primer - this is where I really came up short on info in my searches both on this forum and elsewhere. For example, Duralux lists several metal primers but doesn't tell you anything about any of them. We want to avoid any that have copper in them to prevent corrosion and then we have to choose between epoxy primers and self etching aluminum primers. Then we have chromated and non-chromated, vinyl or epoxy. There seem to be aluminum primers, from PPG, Sherwin Williams, Interlux, Duralux, and pretty much all the big names. The lack of documentation from the manufacturers is astounding though. Interestingly, some of the Military spec primer (MIL-P-23377D) says it is not suitable for use below the water line. Anybody want to provide more specifics than "yellow primer from Duralux"?

5) Base coat - Sherwin Williams KEM 400 seems to be popular here(if you can get it - only sold at chemical coatings stores) and someone mentioned PPG ALK200, a couple using Parker, and Duralux but not if spraying because you aren't supposed to thin it. If you are camo'ing, I still haven't figured out what color you are supposed to use as your basecoat for something like Shadowgrass. The kits seem to use a gray which does not look like the real shadowgrass to me.

6) Camo - Styx River stencils, Reelfoot stencils, and homemade stencils
Paint: Krylon makes a few colors, Styx River has Spray bomb kits, lockstockbarrell.com has bulk paint, and I suppose you could get custom colors mixed at your local paint store as long as you have them add talc to get the reflectivity between 2 and 5%.

7) Anybody use some kind of flat clearcoat to protect the Krylon?

8) Optional : bottom coats (instead of paint on the bottom) for a slippery surface. I was looking into Duraslick which is a UHMW tape that can be epoxied on instead of through-bolted like the thicker stuff they put on airboats. It has to be vacuum bagged though, so good luck finding someone to apply it. Others have recommended applying Frog Spit or Steelflex by hand. There were quite a few other companies with similar products but I did not run across any feedback on them. Some people have said that they are great and others have said that once it starts chipping off when running stumps, it makes friction worse rather than better.

Ok.. that's about it. Can anyone give me specifics on which primers are better and why?

this aint gonna be the answer you lookin for but:
good job with the search.
you puttin way too much thought into it,paint the damn boat.
duralux alum. boat green dont need primer,wipe wit vinegar like it says on the can.
camo is camo,if you want artwork bring your boat and wallet to rick.

paint job (2).jpg

oh yeah,i forgot,the spray can clearcoat sucks,flat clear made mine white looking,reg.clear too shiny.i like it without clear mo better.
STENCIL.jpg

Thanks for the info. Further research showed me that alodined parts are intended to be dipped and soaked for a while, which isn't going to work on something as big as a boat. People who tried brushing got mixed or poor results. I decided to skip that process.

The yellow Duralux primer that had been mentioned on the forum is Duralux M739 Zinc Chromate primer according to the Duralux sheet I have here. Zinc Chromate is supposed to be the best for corrosion protection but I thought it was already gone due to environmental concerns, but they had some in stock. Btw, Duralux is available at Stine here and used to be available at the local lumber yard before Lowes and Stine killed em' off. I still have not found a distributor of Alumabrite, but there appear to be lots of different acid etchers/cleaners, so I will pick up one at a paint shop.

I made Photoshop masks/templates out of some stencil photos I found on line and proceeded to fill them with colors from the Lock Stock and Barrell color sheet and then overlay them in layers just like you would when painting with real paint and stencils. It made me very glad that did not just eyeball the colors and order them because my initial color choices for Shadowgrass were a disaster. I also experimented with the brush tool in a spray pattern and tried different colors to try to figure out a good technique for the highlight colors and decided that it is harder than it looks to make it look as good as the pros do it. I am still working on the technique...

this is styxriver natgear with the SW base. the base dries really quick..(i painted when it was hot tho) tried to roll and that was a nogo. gota spray it. i think you would have to have a hammer and chisel to knock it off tho.

Nice Natural Gear paintjob. I would like to see one in Natural surroundings as I hear it is a good all around paint scheme.

On my aluminum prep research, when I went to buy Alumabrite or whatever it is called, I got confused because there are several products with similar names like Alumi-brite, Alumabrite, Aluma Bright, etc and couldn't figure out which one was the one recommended so I looked at Awlgrip Alumaprep 33 as an aluminum etcher, but it was $$$ so I ended up ordering PPG DX533. This way I can still etch the bottom of the boat since the Steelflex that is going on the bottom is not self etching. Of course it prob doesn't matter if you sand with 24 grit like they say to.