| Kaholee Refit |
February 10, 2007 First thing this morning, I finished up the sanding on the starboard side; all that was left was the toerail. This didn't take too long, and afterwards I vacuumed the dust from the decks and cleaned the entire deck with solvent to prepare for taping. I didn't plan a complicated nonskid pattern for the deck, but nonetheless it took most of the day to lay out and tape the borders of the non-nonskid areas to be painted white on Monday. In keeping with the original pattern common to Tritons, I left a rather wide band of around 1-1/2" at the deck edges and corners. I used a scribe (compass) set to the proper width to draw a light line around the deck the proper distance from the toerail and cabin trunk, as well as the cockpit areas, and, with a slight adjustment to the compass, also drew in the lines for the top of the cabin trunk, made a bit more difficult thanks to the wide radius of the molded shape of the trunk. Next, I applied masking tape, using the lines as a reference to lay down fair curves by eye. Where there was an inside or outside corner, I cut a radius into the tape using a quarter as a guide. In this manner, I worked my way around the various areas of the deck, taping off the outside border of the future smooth, gloss white areas. I wanted to end up with a consistent border around the yet-to-be-installed forward hatch, so with the width of the hatch flange in mind, I allowed for a 2" wooden trim ring, and laid out the tape border a further 1-1/2" from the outside of the future trim; this caused the border around the raw hatch opening to appear overly wide at this stage, but when complete it will be of consistent width. |
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Once I had all the taping complete, I decided to mask off the entire field of the deck to keep the overspray away and reduce the additional sanding and cleanup work later. In addition, the masking paper would allow me a clear reference as to where I had sprayed, once I began the spraying process; it can be tough to see exactly what has been sprayed when spraying over non-contrasting primer. Finally, I had, during the sanding and taping process, managed to put my feet or hands through three of the four taped-over hatch openings in the cockpit area, and I needed to cover these anyway. I planned to spend part of tomorrow cleaning up the shop, preparing the painting equipment, and any last tasks required. |
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