January 18, 2017
Halcyon 14
Wednesday
Continuing work on the deck surfacing, I sanded the latest round of fairing compound as needed, along with the initial fiberglass layers on the poop deck repairs and other areas as required. This brought most areas close to their final state of primer prep, with only a few small low areas left to fill and some additional finish sanding.
The deck areas in way of the chainplates required solid fiberglass work to fill in the remaining areas where I’d removed old and damaged core earlier. To maintain the existing chainplate slots throughout the process, I made up some blanks from nonstick plastic material, and temporarily secured them in place on each side. The original chainplates were covered with paint and rust stains, and I planned to clean them up soon for a thorough inspection.
With the temporary chainplates in place, I prepared simple paper templates of the area so I could cut layers of biaxial fiberglass to fit inside the opening, and also larger templates for the final layers that would tie in the repairs with the ground, tapered areas on the adjacent sidedecks.
After preparing layers of fiberglass according to the templates, I installed eight layers in each opening, the top several layers a bit shorter since the underside of the deck tapered beneath, so the decks were thinner near the toerail. This amount of fiberglass brought the patches up approximately level with the existing and new 3/8″ core material. I’d finish up with the top layers of these patches next time, but to avoid excess heat during curing I didn’t want to do any more at this time.
Meanwhile, at the poop deck, I made up paper templates of the deck areas as needed, and prepared two layers of fiberglass for each side. On the starboard side, I cut and installed several narrow layers of fiberglass inside the little void on the sidedeck, filling this more or less flush with the adjacent areas.
Afterwards, I mixed up a bit of thickened, structural filler and used it on each side to prepare a smooth and even substrate over the new core, interim layers of fiberglass, and the existing deck edges to prepare for the final top layers of new laminate. I let this tack up for a little while while I prepared the fiberglass for the area and attended to some of the other work described earlier.
Finally, I wet out with epoxy and installed two layers of new biaxial cloth for each side of the poop deck.
In the cockpit, there were a couple minor areas that required some fiberglass–one over an obsolete electrical plug hole in the cockpit well, and the other to patch the existing slot and h ole where the centerboard control line had passed through. I planned to rebuild this and add a new fitting through which to route the line, so for now I filled and glassed over the existing opening, which I’d earlier prepared by grinding out the adjacent areas as needed.
Total time billed on this job today: 6.75 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
22°, light snow. Forecast for the day: light snow, an inch or two, 20s.