TotalBoat Topside Primer

I bought a quart of primer and topside finish in white. Picked a perfect day and began priming the hull of my well sanded dinghy. The primer dried almost instantly as I brushed it on. I tried to go as fast as possible. The paint dried so fast that I had no flow and a ton of brush marks. It's a mess and will have to be sanded off in its entirety. I will never use this stuff again and I'm not sure I will use the topside paint either. Jamestown advised me to thin the primer by 5% after I contacted them.....nice to know that now!

I'm rebuilding my boat and am using this primer. It covers well and is very easy to use.

Late in summer 2015 I purchased the Total Boat gloss white to repaint my cock[pit sole after re-building and fiberglassing it. I did not get to that project until this spring, and by then I decided to do it right and first prime the new surface. This week I just finished the cockpit painting and am glad I chose the primer. I couldn't have picked worse weather to paint in because everyday is up in the 90's and humid; the primer did a good job of hiding small defects and it dried quickly. Actually it dried too quickly, but I attributed that to the extreme temperatures and being in the hot sun. The only less-than happy experience i had with it is that I had to put masking tape on it to mask off an adjoining area to be painted in a different color, and when I pulled the tape, a few small patches of paint completely lifted with the tape. I wouldn't blame the primer, however, because of the extreme conditions i used it in; also that I may not have prepared the surface well enough. Thorough preparation is critical for paint to adhere to the surface.

This paint worked very well. It is thick, it will fill minor voids. For an already smooth surface this may be overkill.

Very thick. I would recomend thinning. I tryed to roll it on but had little success probably because the roller i was using. I ordered 1 quart to do my 14 footer. And ran out. I ordered another gallon and am ready for paint. Fills very well. But i found it hard not to apply it too thick.

The other reviews said it dried slowly but mine was dry to the touch in 1 hour. It left an orange peal surface, I should have thinned but the other reviews said it was slow to dry. Clogs 150 grit sandpaper when sanding dry. Covers well but took a half gallon to cover the bottom of a 13' Boston Whaler.

Used this product on a 50 year old fiberglass hull. Do not apply below 55 degrees F. Dried too thick, too slow, and left a lot of sanding to do. Do not brush on at this temp; left a lot of streaks that needed to be sanded out. Built up well and I liked the final finish. Use a roll and tip method. Perhaps using some thinner would have helped.

High build my you know what. this product is very watery like the thinnest latex you can imagine it does not fill depressions at all I feel the videos are very deceiving Disapointed I thought this stuff was going to be the bomb. Would try something else next time

I tried a gallon because the primer I used for years has been discontinued. This total boat primer does not brush well, cover well, or sand well. It gums up brushes worse than anything I've used. I wish I'd only bought a quart, I'll probably toss the rest of it.

I used this on the hull of an old dinghy that I am restoring. It says to remove all old paint but I had only done a lot of sanding with 60 grit. I had no problem with any of the old paint lifiting off. You do need to be careful because this will leave brush strokes and orange peel and it is not ""easy"" to sand. I suggest wet sanding with 220 grit. Be sure to put a touch of dishwashing detergent in your sanding water to prevent clogging the paper. I then follow the 220 with 400. Yes, this is a lot of work. That's what's required if you want the absolute best finish. I like this stuff a lot.

This is a great high build primer that should be applied above 65 degrees and allowed to fully cure where high humidity is a problem.

The Jamestown distributors primers are just as good as the name brand high dollar primers if not better.

This is a great hi-build primer but be very careful if you apply it with a roller it will leave a kind of ""Orange Peel"" effect even with foam rollers which it eats! But it does leave a good base.

Overall, I was pleased with this primer. Directions on the can could be improved, but they are available online. Specifically, dry time should be added to the label.

I used this primer and Total Fair to fix 50 years of abuse to a Pearson Hawk hull. The primer is a dream to use, as is the Total Fair. Getting ready to finish with Wet Edge.

did not shine like it should , when I called and asked they told me I needed to use primer. so I re stripped it and used the same brand primer and re bought more of the same pant and the same bad results. when I called them to tell them my problem they said that everything im doing is the way it was suppost to

covers easily with roller and evenly spreads, dries fast enough

used on new select pine . brush applied . did not level or brush out well - set very quickly and dragged on brush . loaded sand paper - any type from oxide to frecut to garnet - . stayed gummy one day two days four days --- no matter . finish pulled and dragged . very unhappy . not a wise choice - never again . i do not expect to pay almost fifty dollars delivered price to have to play paint engineer to apply -- the customers do not pay for fiddle faddle - - very sad

Good hi-build primer but needs to be applied below 80 degrees or disaster will strike. Namely a rough orange peel like texture that has to be sanded out for a good finish...

This is my first time using Jamestown products and I will continue to use them again. The primer was on the bottom of some old canoes and row boats. With the use of a foam roller the primer went on smoothly, Covered well, and dried quickly which I liked. The only issue I had with the primer was the very quick drying time. On a large surface like the hull of a canoe the primer was drying before I could blend in the next painted section which made for harsh lines in the hull. However, when I lightly sanded before the first coat of paint these shades and drying lines completely disappeared.

I bought a derelict sailboat and have been fixing it up. I used total boat primer for the hull before painting. I had my boat out on Naragansett bay this weekend and it looked awesome!

Application right out of the can is for experts only. If you don't get it right in the first few brush strokes you can expect to do some serious sanding. It also seems to pull the pigment out of some paints. Tried it over a red topside paint that I had sanded a bit and the white turned pink. That was after vacuuming, tack cloth, and thinner wipe down to get the dust up. It does fill and sand well. I have another boat to paint and I'll give it another go but thinned out to see if it works better. Jury still out.

I used the primer to cover ugly, chipped and uneven red hull paint. Once taped off the primer was simple to use and apply!

Easily sands without clogging sandpaper. Sets up fast and only needed one coat coverage over bare wood.

I have not used the primer yet but I am expecting the usual great quality from JD.

I used 2 coats of Totalboat Topside primer over wood and fiberglass/epoxy for the outside of a driftboat. Coverage was just enough combined with wet edge topside paint. Would have liked a little more coverage, but after 2 coats of topside paint, the finish product was great. I was totally impressed by the results. I sprayed one coat and got just as good of results with rolling and tipping after I burned a hole in my air hose. Great product, make sure you get enough. 1 quart was just enough for 2 coats on a 16 ft driftboat.

Quick to dry..to a fault. Additional sanding may be required, but if high build and filling are your goal...this stuff does it. Eats up my Jamestown foam brushes. Could be the xylene base.... Use a synthetic or bristle brush when applying this product.

I recommended a list of products for a friend to paint his boat. He bought this instead. What a mistake. This primer went on thick with huge brush marks. He had to power sand with 100 grit for a long time to get it smooth and used a lot of paper on a small area. By comparison, the product I recommended, PreKote, sands flat with 220 grit with just a quick pass and I can sand 10 times the area he did with just a single sheet. PreKote sands off like talcum powder. This paint sands like granite. It drys so fast that you cannot spread it out with your brush. Look closely at the video. The guy does not work a wet edge and does not go over the area he has painted and he ends up with lots of brush marks. I have a wood boat and do all the painting myself. I do a lot of painting. This primer is terrible.

Lays out well with foam roller and brush. Good durability.

This primer must be good for something, given its positive reviews. It was absolutely no good for what I tried to use it for. I did extensive epoxy work on the deck and house of my 35ft sailboat. Standard practice after epoxy is to prime, then paint. I selected Total Boat products for the entire job. The epoxy work went extremely well. (See my review of that product.) Then came the priming with Total Boat Topsides Primer. This was an unmitigated disaster. The instructions on the can stress applying a thin coat of primer. This has proven to be impossible using a brush. I applied my first attempt unthinned. I used a brush, since the deck and cabin top have lots of fittings to paint around. The primer dried in seconds, literally. The brush stuck in the just applied primer after only a couple of inches of paint being applied. Any attempts to brush it out were futile. It went on thick, with deep brush marks. It was dry to the touch nearly as soon as I ripped the brush out of it. I tried again on a cooler day, with no sun. Same problem. I used a whole quart and covered barely 20 square feet. OK, I thought, I must be doing it wrong. I sent two long emails, with photos of this disaster, a week apart to Jamestown. I got no reply. Then I phoned and was told (by someone who told me that he didn't know too much about paint) that I could try thinning it with mineral spirits. OK, I ordered another quart of primer and when it arrived I got our boatyard's resident painting expert to come along to help me. We thinned 5%. Horrible. Then 10%. Horrible. Then 15%. Horrible. (You get the picture.) At 40% thinner, I could at least brush the paint out a little bit, but still it dried within a few minutes, could not be brushed out well, went on very thick, had deep brush marks, didn't cover completely, and looked generally horrible. Our resident painting expert said that he had never seen any other primer with these characteristics. (For those interested, the temperature was 69F, the relative humidity was 70%, there was no wind, I was using a badger-hair brush.) In the video on the Jamestown website for this product you can see the heavy coat and brush marks where their painter is brushing it on to the boat's keel. You can also note that he makes no attempt to brush it out. Now the worst part of all - The dried primer is hard as a rock. A rock! It does not sand easily. Now picture the deck and cabin top of a 35 foot sailboat. I have masked dozens of fittings, stanchions, ports and hatches. I tried to cut this primer in around all of these fittings, and now I need to sand down a HEAVY coat of primer to get rid of DEEP brush marks. I'll use a sander on the few open spaces, but I'll have to sand by hand around all the fittings, rails, etc. This primer, at least as I applied it, DOES NOT SAND EASILY. I will have MANY hours of work just trying to undo the mess that is this primer. I am so demoralized by the performance of this primer and all the additional work that it has caused that I'm actually considering selling the boat. (I'm an old guy with limited energy.) So, if you, like some of the other commenters here, know what this primer is good for, then buy it. All I can tell you is that it is absolutely no good at all for the use that I described. In fact, it's significantly worse than no good, because of the many hours of work involved in undoing the mess.