December 14, 2020

Arietta 10

Monday

I spent much of the morning sanding the hull with a 6″ orbital finishing sander and 80-120 grit paper, going over the entire hull to prepare the original gelcoat for repairs and primer.  This removed vestiges of gloss, scuffed the surface, and removed final bits of paint from the old boottop.  As needed, I sanded by hand along the base of the rubrail, and at some of the tighter areas particularly at the stem, where the sander wouldn’t fit alongside the trailer’s bow support.

I vaccumed and solvent-washed the hull, then cut out the little fiberglass patches I’d patterned last time.  I wet out and installed the fiberglass in epoxy resin,  using a patch in each place on the hull where old surface cracking required stabilization before filling and fairing.  I filled smaller dings I’d ground out with epoxy fairing compound.

On the starboard side of the hull, there were a couple places where print-through (post-cure shrinkage that allows the pattern of the structural fabric to show through from the outside) was readily apparent to the eye and even the touch.  While eliminating print-through is a fool’s errand, where it was so noticeable I applied fairing compound to help even out the texture and improve the final results.  These spots on the starboard side were located mainly just aft of amidships, and right aft of the stem.

With the hull work stagnant for now, I moved on to the hawsepipe on the foredeck.  With the solid fiberglass patch covering the opening form inside, and having had plenty of time for the void to dry out, now was the right time to inject the void between the deck skins with a thickened epoxy mixture, shop-made from epoxy resin, high-density filler, and silica.

I finished up the port toerail repair by chiseling and sanding the bungs smooth, then applying more Cetol over the repair and immediately-adjacent parts of the rail.  Later, I removed the lifelines and stanchions to prepare for eventually wrapping the decks in plastic during the painting process.

Total time billed on this job today:  6.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  30°, mainly cloudy.  Forecast for the day:  Mostly cloudy, chance of light snow, 33°