I have a Mad River Canoe which has had an exciting life. It was an outfitter canoe and has had several repairs. I have some more work to do to it and plan on painting afterwards.

It has been painted before and I plan on sanding it out and repainting it. Anyone have any suggestion of what paint would work? It just needs to look better. It is definitely going to be a River canoe.

Carl

If it's preppped, just rattle can it.

I have an older NS Phoenix in IXP layup with a red gelcote…..every year, I touch up any chips with epoxy and then go to the local hardware store and get a can of Rustoleum brand red paint in the closest looking shade and give the bottom area of the boat one or two quick coats…..I think it looks pretty good…..

Mike

I have painted a lot of canoes over the years. Marine enamel works fine with a brush. Rattle cans are what I use on aluminum power boats. For canoes nearly any kind of paint will work. You can get fancy and use epoxy, but still gets scraped up on the rocks. Even latex house paint works surprisingly well.

Porch and floor enamel was my canoe paint for decades. Tough enough for foot traffic is pretty good. Colors are limited. One part poly marine topside paint is nice and good colors available. Primer makes it better.

Recently I have noticed some really nice paint for duck boats and sneakboxes. Colors like "dead grass" piqued my imagination. One of the companies is in Green Bay, but I don't recall the name.

Thanks for all the help. I will probably use rattle cans but will have plenty of time to check the other suggestions, don’t have a heated area to work on the canoe.
Living north of the most BWCA has limitation on working outside !
Carl

JATFOMike: "I have an older NS Phoenix in IXP layup with a red gelcote…..every year, I touch up any chips with epoxy and then go to the local hardware store and get a can of Rustoleum brand red paint in the closest looking shade and give the bottom area of the boat one or two quick coats…..I think it looks pretty good…..


Mike"

A gel-coated IXP Northstar?!? Guessing that was a special order? How much does it weigh? Could you share a pic?

If I did this right, there should be a photo of My Phoenix above. It was a special order, but not by me…..I had the opportunity to test paddle a Phoenix at Rutabaga paddlesports in September 2016 on my way home from a BWCA trip. I should have bought it then, but didn’t. The following Spring I decided to purchase one, but there were none available anywhere…..it appeared my only option was to order one and hope for an October delivery. Thankfully, I held off on ordering as I found one for sale at BMO in Pennsylvania……I called and found out it was a special order that a customer backed out on. They sent me the build sheet and the weight looked about 3-4 pounds too light for that boat at 37#, particularly with a gel cote. I called NS and spoke with Bear and confirmed the build was indeed IXP with a gelcote….they had tweaked the Phoenix build since the published model specs to save weight. The early boats like mine also came without floatation tanks to save a little weight and allow a bit more room for gear.

Mike