Wander the West: Repainting Base of '04 Hawk - Wander the West

Brad said:

Fred,
I used a standard sealer and primer for the underside of my (new to me) older hawk. I will then finish is up with an exterior enamel paint. My previous camper I had some boxes between the bed rail and camper for storage. I made them out of Plywood and painted them with exterior semi gloss paint from Home Dept (Behr). The boxes have direct exposure and are now 3 years old and look great. I did 3 coats. All in all I think any good exterior grade paint will do for the underside.
Good Luck!

Picts:

Brad said:

Read up on the glidden, pretty good esp. for the price.

In the original question, Brad's Dad asked what the amber material on the edges might be. Without seeing it, it's hard to tell but I would guess the previous owner used epoxy to try to seal the edges of the plywood. Take a power sander to a bit of it. If its epoxy, it will smell kind of sweet and aromatic.

I like the idea of Line-X. It is very tough. A lot of offroad vehicle restores spray the underside and inside of vehicles with the stuff in off-frame rebuilds. However, it goes on hot (about 170 dg I think) which may blister the original paint. I would talk to a reputable Line-X installer first. It might be wise to remove the original paint before installing Line-X but check with the pros.

If you are going to use paint, I would recommend a good epoxy sealer first. I've use Industrial Formulators S-1 sealer (now part of System Three) for years and it works great.It soaks in and hardens forming a waterproof barrier. The finish coat could be anything but a good marine enamel or polyurethane would probably be best. Again the epoxy sealer would only work properly if you went down to bare wood but this is always a good idea anyway.