Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Slow Week

Starting off slow this week.
Almost done on the hull sanding. Should be done on Sunday. Yeah!

Then I'll start the painting. Might need a helper when it comes to rolling and tipping the hull.
Any takers?

Thursday, August 20, 2009

It’s all in the hips

It's been a while since I posted any updates.
The short story is we spent some time working on the house before we jetted off to Michigan for 10 days.


Once we got home I got to work on the exterior. Over the last two weekends and many weeknights I've been sanding and filling the decks and cabin top.

All in all they were in fair shape. I've decided to fill as many holes a possible. All of the hand rails are now filled and faired as are the toe rails. I figure it's going to be a while until I can make or buy toe rails, and who knows if the hand rails will be the same bolt patterns as the old ones. So filled and faired. The overall idea is to get the boat in the water and watertight ASAP. There are some changes brewing and it sounds like the county is going to build a new bridge right where the boat is sitting. Last word was eviction noticed will come out in November. I hope to be sailing before then.

I took the 1st half of this week off work to work on the boat. 5 days of work yielded some finish sanding on the cabin top, a little bit of painting up there and a crap ton of long board sanding on the hull. For real, every muscle in my body is sore. For the last three days, a good 6 out of 11 hours have been working the long board in a figure 8 over and over hundreds of thousands of 8's. But, it's paying off. The starboard side and transom are f-ing smooth. I applied some paint on a small area to check the fairness. If there were any ripples, they'd show since I'm painting it black. The test showed that all the labor has paid off. When I left today I'm a bit over half way done on the port side. Which means I’m 3/4 done with the sanding? I'll be glad when it's done. I've got a picture of what I don't want. Someone went to town with a sander on this thing. You can see ripples from 50 yards away. On the flip side, one light coat of black on Winterhawk and you can see your reflection.

All in this entire project is taking longer, but that's fine. The results will be worth it. There was only one tricky part. That was fixing an old repair. Winterhawk took a bad hit at one time. I was working the fore deck of a 26 footer when we t-boned a 44 footer in 30+ knots of wind. That was exciting. We gouged the other boat, full thickens gouge, right into the interior. Winterhawk had a hull to deck hit that went inboard 9 inches or so, destroyed everything. There was a crush above the port light too. I figure the bulk of the other boat crashed into the hull/deck and the point of the bow came up onto and crushed the cabin. I saved this repair until the end of the topsides prep. By then I was feeling pretty good calculating how much epoxy and filler various tasks need. Then I got to it. The old repair was half assed and weak. No core, they just packed and bunch of filler in and faired it. It was weak. The whole area was cracked and crumbling. I ground out all this crap and did a proper repair. You can download, for free! some good info on everything epoxy related from the West Systems site. I templated for new core, and then made up a bunch of cloth pieces and fixed this up right. Even the cabin top repair needed some cloth.

So, more of the same for the next few days. Buy this weekend I should have all the sanding done. I've still got nicks and cracks to fill on port, then its another 8 hours on the long board to fair the repairs. Then, it's time to paint.

I'll try to add specifics on what and how soon. But for now, here are some pictures.

001 before any sanding, duct tape still there from the boat being sealed up. Note! Use a heat gun to get the tape residue off. This leave only a little bit to wipe off with the de-waxer.

003 topside holes. lots of them.


















005 lots of duct tape.

006 ground out the crappy repair

















009 note the damage on the cabin top. Must have been exciting!

















010 new core














012 a bit of weight while it core cures overnight
















019 starting the cloth















022 more cloth










027 I couldn't wait I rolled some paint to see how it looked. Turns out I could see a bunch of scratches. Oops, more sanding. So much of what I read said to use 80 grit. I think 120 is fine, and this route didn't leave more sanding with 120 anyways.

















032 no more Winterhawk













033 testing to see if the hull is fair















035 filled scratches and nicks

039, the prior owner went to town on the bottom with a grinder. Ouch. This extended up to the waterline and a little bit above. This took a lot of time to sand out.

040 this is what I don't want. When you sand, angles are better than up and down.













042 1st coat on the topsides and cabin top.

043, a bit of paint on the fore deck

046 more paint, and the old bridge soon to be replaced by a new bridge, right where Winterhawk is sitting.













053 hours of sanding on the plank

061 where I left off today. A fair port side. Well half of it.....