Crazed but still functional ...

... Is there a remedy?

I have been an Albin-25 aficinado since 2003 when my neighbor gave me the wreck of a boat which has become the present day Ms. Bettencourt. Over this time I have inspected perhaps more than two dozen other Albins searching for ideas I might want to incorporate in my vessel.

One unusual feature that I noticed in all these boats, including my own, was a badly cracked and crazed finish on the dashboards. I also saw some strange (to me) remediation techniques employed by owners. I saw a couple of instances where people had applied sticky-backed vinyl wallpaper over the dash and around the helms. In another case, an owner had glued stained and varnished plywood panels over flat spots in the dash and painted around them. Yet another person had deployed a kind of table cloth, weighted down across the top under the windshield, to conceal his flawed finish.

In Ms. Bettencourt's case, I had pretty much a blank slate to work with when I got around to tackling this problem in 2005. The dash was a disaster.

This is where the dashboard project started. Please recall that the boat had been abandoned on the water for 12 years before it came to me.

So I just tore everything out and started over. I believe if you click on the picture and look closely you will see vestigial mud dauber nests in the glove box and on the tangle of wire hanging out from under the dashboard.

I sanded the dash and surrounding area thoroughly and filled a lot of dings and holes. Next came two coats of Pettit Easypoxy undercoater, which seemed to fill the network of cracks all over the dash surface. After sanding yet again, I followed this up with two coats of Pettit Easypoxy topcoat.

At the time, I though the result looked pretty good.

Unfortunately, the beauty was transitory. Here's what it looks like today. Again, if you look closely, you should be able see the underlying crazing and cracking across the entire surface. Obviously, the so-called "high build primer" topped with one-part epoxy paint did not hold up.





It is beginning to look like my Winter 2012-2013 Albin project will be re-doing the dashboard (again). Given my good experience with Interlux two-part epoxy undercoat and their Perfection topcoat, I am beginning to think that these will be my products for this job. I will be calling Interlux Tech Support sometime soon to get their ideas, which I am sure will start with "...remove all of the current one-part epoxy paint job." Maybe they will have another magic product that will peel the stuff off easily. More likely, the answer will be elbow grease and a lot of sandpaper.

Any better ideas?

I would be very grateful for any advice on this dashboard project. Has anyone used a product they can recommend? Is there a better way to do the job? Please respond using the comment box below.

Back at the jobsite...

I have been burning through masking tape, preparing the interior of the pilot house for paint. And, we are still on schedule to haul the boat and finish painting the hardtop surround and underside next week. As soon as that work is finished, the plan is to haul the boat directly to a canvas shop in Charleston to have the hardtop enclosure designed and fabricated. More about that later.