Thursday, January 17, 2008
Down to a bare mast...
Monday and Tuesday morning I removed all the mast hardware, inspected the mast, removed the internal wiring, sanded every bare metal spot or corroded spot, and primed the bare spots with two coats of West epoxy.
Monday Morning - Initial Condition
Here's what the mast looked like before I did any major work on it.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
The WC Triton sliding hatch...
With the seahood off the boat for painting it's now easy to see how the WC Tritons gets their extra headroom...they have a unique raised area in the middle of the cabintop under the hatch...
Formica goes in...
Final step with the bulkhead Formica was to roll on an even layer of waterproof DAP contact cement on the both the bulkhead and laminate surfaces, wait for it to dry, and then carefully set the laminate in place on top of cardboard sliders. Once in place, I removed the sliders one by one and then pressed the laminate onto the bulkhead. To make sure it was well adhered I used a slick 'pressure block'
to go over every square inch of the covered bulkhead.
Bulkhead Formica
I'm covering the main bulkhead with Formica as an experiment, since I expect it to need less maintenance than paint. I'm using Formica Neutral White in matte finish, which a local supplier had in a 5x8' sheet for about $80. I'm using a set of straight-cut laminate shears and a utility knife for most cutting.
The first step was to transfer the tick-stick pattern to the Formica. This is a simple if tedious matter of lining up the tick stick with each set of registrations and gradually building the pattern outline on the material.
Then comes the cutting, which is a damn delicate process with Formica, which loves to crack and flake if you put too much tearing stress on it. I finally got both sides cut out with only one throwaway piece, which I can use for other stuff anyway.
Later I took the cutouts down to the boat for final fitting, which I did with a utility knife. It's impossible to get a great fit but I managed to get fairly uniform a 1/8"gap in most places. Edges will be covered by trim anyway, so it's not critical to fit the laminate really tightly.
The first step was to transfer the tick-stick pattern to the Formica. This is a simple if tedious matter of lining up the tick stick with each set of registrations and gradually building the pattern outline on the material.
Then comes the cutting, which is a damn delicate process with Formica, which loves to crack and flake if you put too much tearing stress on it. I finally got both sides cut out with only one throwaway piece, which I can use for other stuff anyway.
Later I took the cutouts down to the boat for final fitting, which I did with a utility knife. It's impossible to get a great fit but I managed to get fairly uniform a 1/8"gap in most places. Edges will be covered by trim anyway, so it's not critical to fit the laminate really tightly.What's been happening lately...
Lots of stuff happening lately, through the end of November and through December...
I removed the boom in anticipation of the rig refit planned for January. It fit well on top of car for the trip home to SB. I'll be removing all the hardware, straightening a mild bend, and repainting the boom.
I also made some progress on the new compression posts for thee main bulkhead. Every Triton I've ever seen in person or in photos has had these posts running vertically across the main bulkhead, but Nevermind lacks them. They are mostly for adding buckling resistance to the main bulkhead despite being called compression posts. I'm hoping they'll also look good. I'm making each beam out of three laminated layers of 1/2" exterior Baltic birch ply. This ply has a nice clear face veneer and thin plies of alternating light and dark wood, which should look great when varnished. I built a special jig for the circular saw to rip the 5' by 2" lengths of ply (12 in all).
Some of the basic strips after cutting.
A closer look at the MDF jig I made for long rip cuts in ply. It's like a minature and upside-down table saw. The clamps hold down the adjustable 'fence'. The one problem with jigs like this is that they are very prone to kickback because the fence runs along the edge outside of the cut and the cut gets compressed against the blade. I used light pressure and great care at the end of the cut and had no drama. Note that this circular saw is one of the left-blade Porter Cables, so everything is a mirror image of the normal blade-right sidewinders.
I removed the boom in anticipation of the rig refit planned for January. It fit well on top of car for the trip home to SB. I'll be removing all the hardware, straightening a mild bend, and repainting the boom.
I also made some progress on the new compression posts for thee main bulkhead. Every Triton I've ever seen in person or in photos has had these posts running vertically across the main bulkhead, but Nevermind lacks them. They are mostly for adding buckling resistance to the main bulkhead despite being called compression posts. I'm hoping they'll also look good. I'm making each beam out of three laminated layers of 1/2" exterior Baltic birch ply. This ply has a nice clear face veneer and thin plies of alternating light and dark wood, which should look great when varnished. I built a special jig for the circular saw to rip the 5' by 2" lengths of ply (12 in all).
Some of the basic strips after cutting.
A closer look at the MDF jig I made for long rip cuts in ply. It's like a minature and upside-down table saw. The clamps hold down the adjustable 'fence'. The one problem with jigs like this is that they are very prone to kickback because the fence runs along the edge outside of the cut and the cut gets compressed against the blade. I used light pressure and great care at the end of the cut and had no drama. Note that this circular saw is one of the left-blade Porter Cables, so everything is a mirror image of the normal blade-right sidewinders.
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