Filling of scratches

In process of starting to paint my hulls. Question is should I go around and fill all the scratches with an epoxy putty, or just let the paint fill them in.

Is there a rough guide line on if it is deeper that ..... it should be filled?

Thanks,

What you do depends on a lot of things:

What kind of paint are you using? Some have no hiding ability at all.
What do you want to achieve as a final result? Perfect finish or just all one color is fine?

The type of filler depends on the paint - use something that's compatible.

Polyester filler is easier to work with than epoxy. Goes off faster, sands easier. Polyester is what the boat's made of.

To achieve the perfect finish, you'd go over the whole boat with a fairing compound (3M Premium Filler)

Sand the whole thing perfectly smooth, then paint - 2 part polyurethanes (Interthane) work really well, are really hard and tough but a little tricky to work with. Best to have a dust-free place indoors to do the painting so that stuff doesn't land in the finish and ruin the gloss.

I wish I posted the question a week ago.

I'm using Britesides 1 part polyurethane paint with the associated primer. Now that I think about it, I do remember it saying somewhere that it hides nothing...

Want to go for something in between the perfect finish and all one colour. Put the first coat of primer on this weekend and it looks like a beat up boat with a fresh coat of paint.

So I like the idea of using the fairing compound. Do you think a good sand and I should be good to go, or because I've already put 1 coat of primer on I've past the point of using it and I just need to live with the way it is?

Thanks,
Steve.

Actually, the primer makes a good "scratch detector."

Lightly sand the whole boat using 400 grit wet-or-dry (wet) on a long, slightly flexible sanding block (do a Google Image search):


You'll sand out the small scratches and the deeper ones will stand out. Then use the fairing compound to fill the deeper ones.

Once you have the scratches filled and sanded off, wet sand the whole hull with 600 grit, then reprime.

When I say "whole hull," I mean "excluding the non-skid." I tape off the non-skid so I don't wear it down by accident.