January 11, 2017
Halcyon 9
Wednesday
I got back to work on the “bulk sanding” phase for the decks, continuing where I left off with the starboard sidedeck, where I sanded to remove the nonskid pattern and prepare those areas. Afterwards, I moved on to the coachroof and cockpit, removing the molded pattern from those areas as well with my usual two-grit sanding process (40-80).
With the nonskid and flat deck areas complete for now, I turned to the cockpit well and cabin trunk, which featured the original “smooth” gelcoated surfaces. For these areas, I chose a less aggressive sanding tool, and sanded lightly only to scuff and clean these surfaces, the first step towards preparing them for additional work and, eventually, primer and paint. I used a 6″ orbital finishing sander with 80 grit for these initial passes. There’d be more standing later, including edge and detail sanding.
Afterwards, with a little time left in the day, I removed some additional deck hardware from the lazarette hatch (outboard well), which included a couple latches and two vents. The fasteners securing the plastic vents were so rusted that I didn’t even bother to try to remove them, choosing instead to break out the old plastic vents, leaving the fasteners in place for the moment. The old vents were already broken and unusable, so there was no reason to waste effort in their removal. I’d cut away the old fasteners later. With this hardware removed, I could soon get to the surface prep and minor repairs on this hatch. I left the piano hinge connecting the two pieces in place for now, as I’d damaged all my screwdrivers and power bits of the proper size during earlier hardware removal efforts, so I’d have to wait till my replacements arrived before removing the hinge fasteners.
Total time billed on this job today: 7 hours
0600 Weather Report:
45°, rain. Forecast for the day: Rain ending, clearing, 40s