| Kaholee Refit | January
26, 2007 As usual, I began the
day's work with more sanding. I sanded all the epoxy patches that
I applied late yesterday, using the sanding block on the toerail areas.
The icebox hatch was now essentially flush with its surrounding areas,
though a few small low spots would still require additional fairing
compound. |
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I hand-sanded various corners and edges in the cockpit area where the machines couldn't reach, and removed the remaining paint from those areas. The forward corners of the cockpit seats, where they met the cabin trunk and coaming areas, were extremely challenging to sand, and took a long time to sand clean. Eventually, I managed to get all the paint out of the corners. With most of the significant sanding out of the way, I figured now was as good a time as any to do the final pre-paint sanding on the interior. Earlier, I had ground away all the loose paint and provided a rough smoothing with 40 grit, and later 80 grit sandpaper. Even though most of the interior featured unlined fiberglass that was inherently uneven, I wanted the surfaces to be as smooth as possible to ensure the best paint finish within the limitations of the material, and so I sanded the entire interior with 120 grit paper on my finishing orbital sander. I also sanded the main saloon bulkheads to better prepare them for paint. The interior was now ready for primer at any time. |
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With the day's sanding complete, I vacuumed the entire boat, and then cleaned all the deck and cockpit surfaces with acetone to remove residual dust. Now, it was time for some fine fairing to fill any minor remaining low areas, and also to fill the pinholes that are inevitable when using microballoon-based fairing fillers. For the fine fairing material, I chose Alexseal 202 fairing compound. I went over the entire deck and filled small pinholes and low areas with the gray compound as required, finishing up just in time for the end of the day and to allow a weekends' cure time for the compound. |
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