anding, sanding and sanding… lots of sanding required to finish working on the deck, the cockpit, the hatches and other parts. Also, the bottom paint is not up to the quality: the puce color is too dark, and the gloss is not good enough (the 2K paint I use dries out too fast, many of the times, the roller becomes very sticky and hence doesn’t make a smooth surface). Thus I would need also to sand the bottom down again and apply another layer of clear top coat.

But first, I would need to slightly sand the cockpit coaming and paint the whole cockpit in puce color. Like before, I just use transparent PU paint manually mixed with some color pigments. In the same way, I would paint the whole deck, but use another yellowish wooden color pigment instead. Well, after all, I want to show off some wooden colors, if it’s just some pure black, white, blue, green… it must have been much easier. The results… once again, are not totally satisfying! 😢

The deck looks dark and a bit… dirty. Painting has always been my weakest point in the whole boat building process, partly because I can’t find really good painting products here in Saigon, partly because my skills on the painting part are not good indeed. Yet worst, painting and varnishing are the steps that decide how your boat would finally look, they define the beauty of the watercraft, few would notice details in boat structure or construction. I’m feeling a bit upset!

Well, the boat appearance now is not as nice as I was expecting, to be honest, and it’s too late to correct the made mistakes. This would have another side effect: all decorations would be reduced to the minimum, partly because I would have little free time the coming months, and also, to simplify some up – coming tasks. Saying to myself: this gonna be not a furniture going to water anymore, but a nice – to – paddle, sturdy – built and trust – worthy boat instead!