Monday, November 19, 2007

Main chainplates are IN!

BIG milestone this week - the chainplates for the uppers finally went in. It's been a long time coming...it's been nearly a year since I started ripping out the cabinetry in the head to replace all the chainplates, and now it's complete. Nevermind sports new and stronger chainplates for the aft lowers, uppers, and the backstay. The forward lowers are going to wait till later, since they are 1) still in OK shape, 2) easily accessible anytime from the v-berth, and 3) not heavily stressed on a Triton fractional rig.

It felt great to bolt in those new chainplates. There are only a few small details left to wrap up, like installing chainplate covers, painting the primed areas around the uppers, and opening an area for a nut on the back of the #4 bolts on the uppers (there are 5 3/8" SS bolts for each chainplate).

I was also able to put the final coats of paint on the head areas and the port settee (shown). For the settee I'm using Benjamin Moore Super Spec semi-gloss alkyd enamel, color-matched to my new formica. It's really good paint, as it levels nicely and covers very well.
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Monday, November 12, 2007

Fires from CIH


The fires that broke out in the Santa Ana of October 18th cast one heck of a smoky pall over the harbor...this was a huge swirling cloud of smoke, ash and sand whipped up by the 30 knot wind. Later, as I was driving away, it got much darker - about as dark as a half-hour after sunset.
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Saturday, November 10, 2007

Painting the head, and wrapping up the chainplates


First thing today was to test-fit the new covers, which fit great and looked super! I'm going to take the winch covers back to stitch an elastic grip around the inside perimeter so they don't fly off the winches in heavy wind.




I faired around the upper chainplate slots. Fairing and painting are all that's left before I can bolt in those chainplates for good and call this epic project DONE. Replacing chainplates is a big job - well, it was this time, because in every case I wanted to upgrade the marginal original installation with something beefier and easier to service.



After some final fairing, and sanding in the head, I gave everything an acetone wipe-down and then rolled on a coat of white Bilge-Kote. You can't imagine how great it feels to finally hide all that ugly bare fiberglass, plywood, old paint and general filth. Now I can see how the new head/hanging locker will look. The bare portions of the bulkheads are where I'll place white satin Formica - the paint will mostly be hidden by cabinetry but the Formica will be exposed.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Canvas work - winch covers, grill cover

I stiched up a new cover for the rail-mounted charcoal grill, and two winch covers for the primary winches. They turned out well!
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Thursday, November 01, 2007

Painting lockers

November 1st, I arrived back at the boat at Channel Islands Harbor direct from Grand Staircase/Escalante in Utah. Nevermind was waiting for me at the end of my month-long sojourn, and I plunged back in to work with renewed vigor. There's beginning to be more visible payoff with every step I complete, so that Nevermind is always looking better and better. This is gratifying.

Having previously patched and filled a few holes in the port settee lockers, the two deep bins were now ready for paint. I mixed up a strong TSP solution and scrubbed them well with a Scotch-Brite pad, and then rinsed...and rinsed....and rinsed, till the TSP was all gone. After drying, I scuffed the paint with 80 grit sandpaper, vacuumed out the dust, and laid in a coat of white Bilge-Kote. The next day I followed up with a second coat. The transformation was dramatic!

I also removed and serviced the house battery (installed 8/05) today - electrolyte was a little low in 2 or 3 cells.

I finished by taking many pictures of the boom before removing it - it's going home for a cleaning, straightening (it has a minor bend after an incident with a preventer), and painting. How about that arrangement at the end of the boom - nice, huh? When I got the boat there was no end cap at all and the topping lift didn't work at all. This was a quick & dirty rig to get us down from San Francisco.

One more thing - the (presumably polyester Bondo) fairing filler on the seahood is failing. It's not adhering to the glass. When the filler comes off, the paintdoes too, leaving bare glass. That will have to be stripped, re-faired, and repainted. The sea hood is also not bolted down, so I'm going to sink some 1/4-20 SS bolts through the flange to fix it more securely to the cabin top. Right now only bedding compound holds it on the boat.

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