110 Cookson Lane | Whitefield, ME 04353 | 207-232-7600 | tim@lackeysailing.com
Once more, I washed and sanded yesterday's application of fairing compound. Most areas were pretty close, but I'd need at least one more application on the recored areas, plus eventual fine filling and surfacing (which I'd do a bit later in the process).
Since I had to leave the shop early this day, I applied the third coat of fairing compound as soon as I'd finished up with the sanding and cleanup.
With a bit of time left, I decided to attack the poop deck, which I'd decided to maintain as a separate project from the other deck areas. There were two large hatch openings in the deck--one for access to a storage area (seemingly original), and the other for access to a now-removed propane locker at the forward edge. I thought it made sense to simply rebuild the deck entirely, ignoring the two openings, and then recutting any openings as desired or necessary later on, rather than attempting to work around either or both openings.
I found that I could, with relative ease, pry up and remove the mahogany hatch gutter assembly from the after opening, allowing me to set it aside for possible reuse.
Before cutting into the deck, I removed the athwartships section of the cockpit coaming, which was in poor condition anyway, and which we'd previously discussed removing to make way for a more useful mainsheet traveler. I didn't make any attempt to save the old material.
Next, I cut around the perimeter of the deck with a saw, and removed the top skin and damaged core beneath. The deck was extremely flimsy, with a badly delaminated top skin and significantly damaged core, all of which was expected. The shape of the deck, as it were, had already been lost before opening the top skin, so I didn't bother shoring up beneath the deck first, though I'd have to support it well as part of the rebuilding process later.
Once I removed all the core from the field area, I had to depart for the day, so further steps would wait till tomorrow.
Total Time Billed on This Job Today: 5 hours
