Sunday, August 26, 2007

Painting the cockpit

Finally, a project that's not only functional but is also cosmetic! It's so much easier to stay motivated when you can see progress and when the boat looks a little better every week.

We vacuumed out the cockpit and then used a brass brush and acetone to remove so old tar or gummy bedding compound that was stuck in the nonskid pattern . We followed that up with a wash using a stiff brush and a strong TSP solution.







Then we taped off the nonskid area in the cockpit sole. Here I keep myself off the newly cleaned sole while trimming the masking around the aft corners.


Finally we were ready to roll on the paint! We used Interlux Interdeck in beige.
































I was thrilled with the way the first coat came out...all the old worn-out gel coat was covered and it looked great! One more coat and it's done.
Posted by Picasa

More views under the old head...


Posted by Picasa

Great strides.

In contrast with my discouragement of a few weeks ago, this week seemed like great progress was made. Inspired by meeting one of the circumnavigators of Sohcahtoa, I plunged in to the current projects with a renewed vigor. Plus, this week I again had some help from Michele. This means (perhaps unfortunately) that you get pictures of me in action...

The first item was to set up Karl's boat, Passat, with the winch covers I made. Karl was missing this weekend, though...so I gave ém a shot of 303 and put them on the boat for him to find.













The area aroung the backstay chainplate was ready for paint, so I sanded the primer once more with 120 and then brushed out some Brightside. I also rolled some Bilgekote on the chainplate knee structure inside the lazarette, but didn't take any pictures!





Next up was continuing the reinforcement of the main bulkhead around the upper chainplate mount. I cut several pre-measured lengths of West 4"biax tape. This stuff is a joy to work with, because it's so easy to do neat work. After a thin coat of raw epoxy thickened with West microfiber filler, fo fill the weave of the unlerlying laminate, we layed on the additional glass. We taped across the bulkhead/hull seam, not along it, as I wanted to bond to the raw fiberglass and bare wood beyond the existing tabbing.












Later I took a little wrecker bar and quickly removed the old, nasty head platform. It was barely attached; most of the bond was in the many layers of old paint! The tabbing was weakly bonded and pulled loose easily. Everything was in good shape underneath.
Posted by Picasa

Monday, August 20, 2007

Summertime progress

Progress is good these days. Last weekend (the 19th) I went down for a work day.

First item was to sand, prep, and prime the repaired areas around the backstay chainplate and the old flagpole base. I put one a coat of Pre-Kote in the morning and was able to sand and re-coat by late afternoon.

I also test-fitted the mooring bitt and its 1/4" pre-fab fiberglass base. The plan is to epoxy the base to the poop deck and then through-bolt the bitt through base and deck. I'm somewhat tempted to put the bitt off-center and out of the way somewhere, for two reasons: one, so that there is a nice place to sit on the poop deck, and two, so that it doesn't straddle the chainplate knee below. The center seems best for appearance, but since the stern roller won't be centered either (the backstay dominates the center) perhaps it's best to offset the bitt to the starboard side near the deck pipe. That's a decision to make.
My friend Michele finished up the leather chafe covers for the chain-to-rode splices on both the bow and stern rodes.













I did some fairing on and around the main bulkhead, and then reinforced the chainplate mounting area on both sides with two layers of 24 oz. woven roving. I'll also add tabbing strips of 4" West biax tape along the bulkhead. This is the most stressed area, with the primary (upper) shrouds and their tension load attaching to these chainplates. The mast compression load (which I've calculated will max out at about 4000 lbf in an extreme load) comes in about 3 feet away on the main beam.
Posted by Picasa