Headliner refinishing (painting)

[RASCAL]

I have now completed refinishing the original headliners in (1) the forward stateroom, (2) the galley/dinette, and (3) the aft stateroom of our 1979 58' YF, and am very pleased with the results. So is my wife.

PAINT - Valspar ultra premium, satin finish, exterior, 100% acrylic latex (used
for vinyl house siding)
COLOR BLEND - Valspar #7003-3 "foxtrot" (perfect to near perfect match)
ROLLERS - 6" foam, rounded end, application roller (rounded ends greatly
reduce/eliminate roller end marks during application)
4" foam, rounded end, tipping roller
PREPARATION-Wipe headliner with damp micro-fiber cloth, rinsing as required.
Remove all hardware posible, i.e. corner finish washers, etc.
Mask all vertical surfaces contacting headliner with 2" blue
painter's tape. (Frog Tape may be better? I have not used it.)
Drop cloth as required. (I did not get much paint spattering.)
APPLICATION - Thin paint with water approx 20%, and pour in pan.
Roll 6 " roller in paint, and then roll in upper portion of pan until
most of the excess paint has been squeezed from roller.
Apply evenly to headliner, rolling perpendicularly between two
seems of same panel, and roll seems in direction of support
beam. Roll about a 4 sq. ft. section.
Take 4" "tipping" roller and roll painted area in same direction,
opposite direction, and then in an "X" pattern. Do not apply
much pressure. Remember, you are now tipping.
Continue painting next 4 sq. ft. section of same panel with a
slight overlap to previosly painted section. Tip roll again.
Continue paint rolling and tipping of same panel until complete and then move onto adjacent panel, etc. Always slightly overlap paint and tipping. It takes a little practice, so do your bow stateroom first. If your guests complain at your "practice" area, (and they won't) give them some paint and these instructions.
Remove masking tape after about an hour. A damp paper towel over a fingernail readily removed the small trace(s) of paint that got behind the top edge of my masking job. If you let it go too long (total drying time of 4hours), removable is far more difficult.

Is the finished product like a new headliner? I would be willing to bet that an experienced boat buyer would be extremely impressed with the condition of the headliner. So would a surveyor.

Best to all,

Ed
P.S All paint and painting products came from LOWE'S.

[jim rosenthal]

I've heard of this, one of our club members did it on an older Chris-Craft MY and liked the results a lot. If you can, post some photos, although you are too late for a "before and after" set.

[RASCAL]

I have yet to do the saloon (been perfecting my skills) and will probably do it next week. I'll take some before and after photos and post them. Thanks.

Ed

[SKYCHENEY]

That sounds great and I'd love to see the pictures. After replacing headliner, I now have no fear of just ripping the old stuff down. It's work to replace with new, but not that difficult.

However, I might consider painting if I just had a small leak on my new headliner rather than replacing.

[MikeP]

Yeah - I have a 4-5" diameter discoloration in the salon headliner from a leak that was there when we bought the boat. I fixed the leak (rebedded the 200+ flybridge screws) but have never done anything about the discoloration because I didn't want to replace the headliner just for that. Painting it sounds like a great idea. Your instructions were excellent but, like everybody else, I would love to see some pics.

[Timeout]

Ed,

I'd like to do this. Did your headliner have the small holes in it and if so, did the paint clog the holes? I've been afraid of hit and miss on the holes.

Thanks,

[jim rosenthal]

The paint did not clog the holes on the boat that I saw done this way. It is still in our classic yacht club and looks great. I am going to do this, this spring/summer. Thanks for the detailed instructions. Even I can follow those....

[RASCAL]

The paint did not clog the holes because of the thinning process (20%). That was my major concern too, but it was not a problem.

Ed

[RASCAL]

Here are the before and after pics of the saloon headliner as follows:

1) before painting, forward of the overhead light (This was stained by a leak where a table had been mounted on the FB forward of the front seat.)
2) after painting, forward of the overhead light
3) headliner seam after painting (Note, holes holes in material still appear.)

I will include two more pics in the next reply.

Best to all,

Ed

[RASCAL]

Here are the other two pics:

1) Starboard side stain/discoloration in saloon headliner before painting

2) Same area after painting and replacement of teak light board.

Hopefully this info can be helpful!

Best to all,

Ed