| Circe
| Friday, August 14, 2009 Once again, I began the morning by sanding the deck as needed--this time, there were fewer patches, and the sanding went quickly. Excepting the starboard cockpit bulkhead patch and the larger recore patch on the starboard sidedeck, the filling and fairing was now complete; these two areas still contained minor low spots that I'd need to fill one more time. Otherwise, the decks (forward of the cockpit, at least) would require only finish sanding (80-120 grits on a vibrating palm sander) and some minor work around the chainplate slots to complete the pre-primer preparations. |
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With the major deck work wrapped up, and with the cockpit modifications still up in the air pending further massaging of the concept and final approval, I moved back into the interior to wrap up some of the initial preparatory work there. I removed a series of pop rivets from the cabin sides in way of the saloon deadlights, which had been there to support a curtain rod, and then sanded the entire saloon liner--a molded, gelcoated, factory installation--to remove the gloss and prepare it for eventual primer and paint later in the process. After the initial sanding, I reamed and ground out the myriad old fastener holes in the liner to prepare them for patching and surfacing: numerous bolt holes from deck hardware, the rivet holes, and other small holes where things had been secured from within. Similarly, I ground tapered areas around all of the instrument holes in the aft bulkhead, so that I could begin to patch those. I wrapped up the sanding work inside the boat by sanding the last remaining areas of the inside of the hull, above some longitudinal stiffeners on each side. These areas had been covered in contact cement to "secure" some high-pressure laminate as a sort of hull covering before, and since this material badly gummed up sanding discs, I used a flap wheel on a small grinder to remove the gunk and remaining paint, as well as some loose tabbing left over from the old shelves that had been above the longitudinal stiffeners. All of this would be painted and covered in the final interior iteration. |
 
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I cleaned up all the sanding debris above and below decks, and spent the remainder of the day filling the reamed-out holes in the interior liner, and also the two deck areas that required it. |
 
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