Well, I just finished painting everything top sides (still need to varnish exposed wood parts). Phew! It was hard, maybe the hardest part of the build for me. I did it all at once for various reasons, but not sure I’d recommend it
I used some primer underneath and 3 coats of paint on top of that, and it seemed like 3 was the min. needed to cover the darker spots, and corners, fillets etc. that are harder to paint. It seemed like it took about 17-18 oz per coat (the hull took about 8 per coat). That 17-18 includes painting the rudder, centerboard cap and B3 hatches. I mixed 3 batches per coat and started with inertior of cuddy, then behind coaming (slow, hard parts first), then seat tops, transom, coaming, seat longitudinals and finally the sole. I did the last bit of the sole near the transom from outside the boat, and then painted everything else starting with the cabin top.
It was a good experience, and here are some things I learned:
Filling screw holes on the deck (glossy paint is unforgiving!) could have been done better without any more work. I think if I had filled and scraped/sanded them down to level after the deck already had a couple layers of well cured epoxy, it would have prevented the raw, soft wood from being worn away around the screw hole areas which ended up leaving little dips.
I’m stingy and wanted to use the foam roller and tip off brush as long as possible, but when I switched to new ones mid-batch, the results were much better.
I did try to control dust a bit (despite building in a dirt floor garage), but simply wiping off the next surface to be painted right before painting that area made a big difference and only took 2 seconds - didn’t realize that until the end.
So far the build has been about process and anticipation, but as soon as the paint goes on, all of the sudden, it’s a material object...a boat in a garage which is both exciting and weird.