| 1975 Dufour 27
Refit | Monday, October 13, 2008 With the overall sanding complete, I concentrated today on the various repairs, hole filling, and patching required on the hull and deck. There were a number of areas requiring attention, from unused fastener holes to large openings that had once contained hardware or other gear, and several smaller areas requiring some grinding and repair. In addition, the decks contained several smallish areas showing signs of top-skin delamination or other issues. On deck, I prepared the various areas by milling out old fastener holes to accept filler, grinding out cracks or other anomalies, and similar operations. I also drilled a series of small holes in the bad portions of the deck, most notably on the starboard foredeck and both sidedecks just forward of the cockpit, and prepared these areas for some spot epoxy injection to resecure the top skins to the core beneath. One area was clearly worse than I had expected, but I thought that opening the decks might lead down a repair path that we didn't want--that is, more extensive than desired--so since the areas in question were small and generally isolated, I pressed on with the existing technique. I also ground the gelcoat coating off the inside of the openings in the cockpit that I could reach from the lockers--the large rectangular opening at the aft end, an old instrument hole there, and the old AC receptacle hole on the starboard coaming. This would allow me to install fiberglass from the inside to complete the repairs, once I'd done the outer layers. |
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Similarly, I prepared various areas of the hull for filler. Previously, I'd milled out the old fastener holes for the rubrail, and now I went over the hull closely to look for cracks or old repairs that needed to be ground out and refilled. In general, the hull was in good shape and needed little, other than the transom, which had a number of chips and dings at the edges, and would require other work to fill some areas at the top edge, since the rubrail wasn't scheduled to be reinstalled on the transom; therefore, I'd need to fill the odd molded "handholds" at the top edge and fair them flush with the surrounding areas. I ground out the edges of these openings a bit to help accept filler later. With all the grinding and drilling complete, I vacuumed the decks thoroughly. This brought a couple more areas to my attention on the foredeck, so I drilled out a few more holes as before, then revacuumed the area. Afterwards, I cleaned the areas to be filled or glassed with solvent. I spent the rest of the day filling, injecting epoxy, fairing, and installing fiberglass patches over several openings in the cockpit. For the old compass holes in the bulkhead, since I couldn't access the back side at all, I installed patches of Corecell foam (the bulkhead has a foam core) with epoxy adhesive in the openings to fill the bulk of the hole. I left the epoxy to cure, but later I'd install fiberglass over the top. I filled the various holes and patches on the hull, though I didn't get to filling the transom "handholds". |
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