ecided to try a new technique when glassing the hull’s external side. I add some color pigment into the epoxy used for glassing (and later, also to the transparent paint when painting the bottom). The pigment I used has a dark brown with a bit of reddish wooden shade. If this technique works, then the lower part of the boat will have a very deep brown and reddish, semi – opaque, lacquer like finish. And if the technique fails, I’ll paint the bottom in black.

My idea is to contrast the hull with the deck: deck will have a brighter light yellow wooden color, and hence the whole boat would have a wooden outlook, especially the upper part. But it’s too early to say at the moment, I don’t have too many choices on the painting products (e.g: wood stain) available for wood working here in Saigon. Like the internal side, I glass the seams with 6 cm – width bands of bias – cut fiberglass, before glassing the whole bottom, all with epoxy mixed with the pigment.

The result is not totally satisfactory, but quite acceptable, the dark puce (a little bit too dark), lacquer – like shade is pleasing, at least to my eyes. Wooden working boats in Vietnam until today are usually oiled (not painted) in this color, it creates an “endurance feeling”. I applied one layer of epoxy fill – coat, then sanded the hull thoroughly with 80 grit sand paper and my random orbital sander, then applied another thin layer of epoxy fill – coat, lightly sanded again at 120 grit.

Next would come two layers of transparent paint mixed with that same color pigment. I’d lost all my confidence with most painting products I could find here, my previous experiments with painting in HW – 1 & 2 were not satisfying at all. That’s why I came up with the decision to use color pigment in epoxy, then use a kind of good top coat called: 2K gloss, it’s transparent, when mix with a dark pigment, it can offer a good protection to the epoxy layers underneath!