February 13, 2023

Further 44

Monday

Over the weekend, I continued work on the last round of newly-filled fastener holes and other ongoing fairing work.  A short work session of 1.5 hours on Saturday to sand the filler from the day before and reapply additional filler thereafter advanced the project by a full day in elapsed time.  At the large hole on the transom coaming, which I’d filled last time, I ground out a shallow dish and added a piece of lightweight fiberglass to reinforce the larger filled hole; then, later I cheated and applied a heavy layer of fairing compound over the top of the patch, hoping to eliminate any need for further work on this one spot.

Now, at the beginning of the week, I sanded all these areas once more, and sanded all the remaining areas of the cockpit and cockpit well  through the final finishing grits to prepare everything as needed, including smoothing the faired areas and all the previously-unsanded gelcoated surfaces.  Happily, my work over the weekend now meant that this was the last round of pre-primer sanding and prep required, always a banner moment in the project.  I’d have to do a bit of detail sanding around the companionway later, once the temporary sea hood came off again after the final dodger templating, but that hardly registered on the scale of things.

With sanding complete, I did another intensive cleaning of all areas of the shop and boat, beginning with a good blowdown with compressed air (followed by open-door airing), sweeping, vacuuming, and then a water wash of the staging, floor, and nearby areas to settle dust and give everything a much-needed rinse.

Afterwards, I solvent-washed the deck and hull to fully clean these areas and allow me to move forward with final pre-primer preparations.

These processes took most of the day, but with the boat finally cleaned up, I used what little time was left to get a start on masking, beginning with some of the opening port frames (just two for the moment).  I’d continue masking and related prep next time.

Total time billed on this job today: 8.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation: Overcast, 26°. Forecast for the day: Mostly cloudy, 40°