| Bolero
Project |
November 26, 2007 After some office time to order some consumables needed for the work ahead, I got to work in the shop and dismantled the cardboard mockup; it took only several minutes to take apart 2 days' work. I set the cardboard pieces aside for safekeeping, since I planned to use them as basic templates later in the construction process. |
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I re-leveled the boat, which was a straightforward process now that I had all my measurements from the last time. I also checked the side-to-side level for the first time by laying a level across the deck at the aft end of the cockpit. The level was spot on. The leveling wasn't critical at this stage, and I'll check it carefully later on before I begin new construction, but I wanted things to be basically where they should be in any event. I used a scraper to remove the silicone sealant that had been beneath the chainplates, and attempted to scrape away all the dreaded and contaminating residue--and even the paint and gelcoat beneath to some extent--to rid the boat of this evil substance before I laid a grinder on the deck. While I was at it, I scraped away the minimal polysulfide residue from beneath the old toerails. |
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My final step before beginning to prepare the surfaces for paint and further work was to thoroughly clean and dewax the deck and hull. I used Alexseal dewaxing solvent for this. While I felt this was sufficient on deck, I considered this washing only a first step for the hull, since the previous owner had mentioned that they waxed it. So I planned additional dewaxing steps as a safeguard before I began to sand the hull...but that would come later. Next, I sanded the inside of the new deck cutout to help fair the curve and to bring it out to the line I'd left in place while making the rough cutout before I sanded the line off during later deck grinding steps. I spent the rest of the day grinding the deck to remove old paint and to remove the molded-in nonskid pattern where applicable. I found that the molded pattern areas stood so proud of the surrounding areas that it didn't make sense to try and completely flatten and remove them with sander alone, so instead I sanded the pattern as flat as I could, began to feather the raised edges into the surrounding areas, and then moved on, planning to use some minimal filler to continue the smoothing process a bit later. The next round of sanding would flatten the areas a bit more before I turned to the filling stage. As I neared the chainplate areas, with their silicone contamination, I ground these areas with the tail end of a worn-out sanding disc and then immediately discarded the disc before continuing to other areas. This helped remove the invisible contamination without spreading it to other areas. I worked my way around the entire deck, removing all the old paint down to the original beige gelcoat and flattening the molded nonskid pattern as much as practicable at this early stage. I left an area on the after deck untouched, since I had laid out for a new access hatch cutout but needed to confirm its position before making the cut; therefore, I didn't want to sand my marks off. Much more sanding lay ahead, but it was a progressive first day of the preparation process. |
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