Monday, July 16, 2007

Grunt Work

I have to admit to some moments of discouragement this last weekend. The work was so hard, and the visible (or at least entropy-decreasing) changes so few, that I wondered if I'd ever wrap up the chainplate replacement. On Saturday I concentrated on the upper chainplates, which meant grinding the old paint away from the main bulkhead where the upper chainplates bolt. It's pointless to set up for grinding but only do a small area, so I ground the entire head & hanging locker area - main bulkhead, aft bulkhead, hull, and deck bottom. I used 40 grit but whatever the original paint was, it's incredibly tough. And it makes mountains of dust. A larger Shop-Vac finally made the vacuum attachment to the PC grinder more effective and kept the dust down somewhat, but not before the whole boat was covered in white dust - again. I took things down to the glass around the chainplate areas because they will need some mild fiberglass repair, reinforcement, and fairing before the new plates go in. There are gaps in the tabbing below the plates which I want to bridge as well.

Other progress: I also managed to chisel out all of the awful old polyester resin 'mush' in which the cabin liner had been bedded. I freed the backstay chainplate from its custom-cast bed on the chainplate knee and prepared it for mounting soon. The hawsepipe for the stern rode was mounted on the poop deck in an ample bed of polysulphide, and it dresses things up considerably there. And finally, I got the rope-to-chain splice done on the bow anchor rode. It came out nicely.


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