Question about paint

Economical is relative your your own economy, and durability is greatly realted to your surface prep, no matter what the paint you use.

Not knowing what you have, I might recomend gelcoat to you. It stinks, but is easy to apply with a roller and is very durable. Relative cheap too.

I'm doing a lot of research on exterior latex paints now, so while I cannot recommend using it, I am leaning towards it myself.

I painted the interior of an old boat with West Marine's generic single part topside paint (I can't remember the name). Had a nice gloss, went on real easy, but wasn't too durable. Easy to patch scrapes though.

I can recommend using something other than plain white, even if you just tint it slightly to the tan side. The glare off a white deck is brutal.

 

you can use interlux brightside, just roll it on with a fine nap shed free roller and you'll get decent results. off white is alot better than brightwhite as far as glare is concerned

 

Painting or re-gelcoating the fiberglass is relatively straight forward.
Wash, sand, wash again, let dry, follow instructions of coating manufacturer.
But those aluminum panels are going to be a problem.
I've never been able to apply paint to an aluminum surface
And have it holdup to the marine environment.
I always get blistering caused by corrosion under the paint.

 

Is the aluminum easily removable? If so you could have it powder coated. If you do have it powder coated make sure the shop does a chromate conversion coating pretreatment so it will hold up in a salt environment.

Edited to add: You can also just have the chromate conversion coating done on the aluminum and paint it with the same paint as the fiberglass. Paint will adhere to it much better than bare aluminum and then everything will match. But you have to be able to remove the aluminum as it is an immersion process.

 

As stated above, a single part paint like Brightside will not hold up too well to walking and dragging stuff across.
I would definitely recommend a slightly more costly, but much stronger and better paint also made by Interlux called Perfection.
A catalyzed paint is far better than a non-catalyzed paint, for so many reasons.
If money wasn't an issue, I'd recommend Awlgrip.
Also, a bright and shiny white deck can make for hard visibility on the water.
I two toned my deck, white with gray non-skid.

 

Preparation is everything when painting.
Getting the aluminum surface absolutely clean is the hard part.
The aluminum oxide that develops on the surface is harder than most sandpaper grit.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=painting+aluminum&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10

 

Zinc chromate primer would work, but as Brett said, surface prep is EVERYTHING. It should be almost as good as the immersion chromate but just a little more prep work should be done. Good luck whatever you do and post some pictures!

 

why not use a belt sander and give the aluminum a brushed look? it will cut the glare and be fairly easily to maintain.
Also being I've had some experience lately with surface painting I'll tell you the best think you can do is web the surface after you paint it. the krylon webbing I used is 3 times stronger then the interlux brightside I applied it over.

 

How is the Brightside holding up?

 

the brightside under the webbing is great, no major wear yet, the webbing was dry in an hour and usable in 3, but it continued to cure for days after I think cause it is nice and hard now and can't be easily rubbed off like the paint can be from friction. It also added a nice grip effect, had I known it was going to do that I wouldn't have added the grip powder to the paint.

The brightside everywhere else is another story, while I haven't had a major issues yet it is getting stained in the bilge area pretty easily.