Wednesday
During the morning, I applied the second coat of Cetol to the exterior woodwork. Later, I spent some additional time running errands related to the project.
Total time billed on this job today: 4 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 40°, clear. Forecast for the day: Partly sunny, 50°
Tuesday
I got right to work on the first coat of finish for the exterior woodwork. The owner chose Cetol Lite for the finish, the same product that had been used previously. On the various bits and pieces on the pilothouse and coachroof, I applied a maintenance coat over the existing finish, as I’d not stripped these areas.
For the caprails, I applied the first of three coats of the new finish, working my way around the boat up one side and down the other.
I continued with the bulwarks and rubrails on both sides, along with some loose parts including the cockpit seats and some trim from the pilothouse door.
The pilothouse door and a small lazarette hatch cover had been painted green in the past, matching the hull color. The finish was weathered and worn, but generally sound on both parts, so preparation was a straightforward matter of light sanding and cleanup. Afterwards, I painted the lazarette and the inside/back side of the pilothouse door with one-part green paint that matched the new hull color.
Total time billed on this job today: 5 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 12°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny, 30s
Monday
The owner requested that I remove and send to him the four round deadlights from the forward hull so he could have them rechromed, all the better to complement the freshly repainted hull. So now that I had all the masking removed and once more had access inside the boat, I removed the frames and their backing rings. The deadlights were secured through the hull with machine screws and nuts inside. In some cases, I could remove the nuts without the fasteners spinning, but in other locations I had to secure the nuts inside with locking pliers and remove the screws from outside.
Once I’d removed all the fasteners, I carefully pried loose the external frames and glass to avoid any damage to the hull paint. I packaged the frames up and shipped them to the owner, as he had a local shop ready to do the refinishing.
Next, I moved on to masking for the brightwork, starting at the top of the boat with the pilothouse roof, and working my way around the deck areas, masking around handrail supports, existing hardware, and against the decks as needed to prepare the woodwork for maintenance coats of finish (on the pilothouse and coachroof), and all-new finish on the caprails. I removed the wooden cockpit seating areas so I could refinish them down on the bench.
With the decks masked, I continued on the hull, masking off the lower edge of the caprails bow and stern and around the bulwarks and rubrails to prepare for their new finish. Afterwards, I wiped down all the woodwork with paint thinner to clean it one last time, so the wood would be ready for new finish next time.
Total time billed on this job today: 5.5 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 29°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, 40°
Sunday
Over the long weekend, I unmasked the rest of the boat, including the bulwarks and deck areas.
Later, I masked off and painted the bottom with red antifouling paint to complete the hull paint work.
Total time billed on this job today: 3.25 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 20°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny, 40
Thursday
With only a short time available before departing for Thanksgiving festivities, I still wanted to remove the masking to expose the fresh boottop, and during an early morning session I did just that, along with the plastic covering the topsides. I’d take care of the remaining plastic and masking in the near future, after which I’d be ready to continue work on the brightwork.
Total time billed on this job today: 1 hour
0600 Weather Observation: 27°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny with a chance of turkey, 37°
Wednesday
With 45 hours’ cure time on the hull, now I could proceed to mask off the fresh green paint so I could finish up the boottop. To begin, I applied a narrow strip of solvent-resistant vinyl fine-line tape along the top edge of the boottop area; this tape would help create a crisp paint transition and avoid tape bleed-through between the colors. Afterwards, I masked over the vinyl with regular masking tape.
I draped the entire hull in sheet plastic, securing it at the caprails and elsewhere as needed. Along the bottom edge, where I’d be spraying later, I applied masking paper as additional protection against overspray and because the plastic alone, being non-absorbent, might allow paint to run and drip onto the boottop below. At the bow, I made up the difference between the 3′ wide plastic sheeting and the top of the boottop with additional paper, masking everything thoroughly.
After a final solvent wash and tack-off, I spray applied four coats of Alexseal snow white gloss topcoat to the boottop area.
Total time billed on this job today: 5.5 hours
0600 Weather Observation: Cloudy, 32°. Forecast for the day: clouds, advancing showers and rain, 40s
Tuesday
With some time on hand, I thought I’d use it to good advantage and start some of early dismantling work aboard. With a rigging contractor scheduled to arrive later in the week to look over the masts and rigging, and begin the process of dealing with several mast- and rigging-related items on the work list, I decided to begin by removing the existing lifelines, which I’d have to do before almost anything else regardless.
The existing lifelines were an interesting mess of mismatched hardware, unusual wire ends, and generally atrocious condition overall, clearly long past their suitable lifespan and on the replacement list for good reason.
To begin, I thoroughly documented all the existing connections, wire ends, and general adjustment positions of the hardware and wire eye ends for posterity. The photos below are representative, but I had many more detail photos of each connection area for future reference if needed. Each wire seemed to have different hardware at each end, with old or nonexistent adjusters and, at the starboard aft end, two wires that were secured to the pulpit with Nicropress fittings, clearly a quick and desperate fix made with no thought to ever conveniently removing the wires. All the wires themselves were old and worn as well.
Over the course of an afternoon work session, I removed all the lifelines, a rather laborious process given the age and condition of the fittings that required removal in order to unstring the wires and store them away for now. At the starboard stern pulpit, I had no choice but to cut the wire loops with a hacksaw to remove the wires, and ended up cutting wires in one or two other places as well since I was unable to otherwise remove the wire ends for one reason or another. I labeled all the existing lifelines appropriately, but they were in too poor condition and with random and less-than-ideal adjustment positions for the lines to be replicated using the old ones as a guide. Instead, I’d have the riggers measure for the new lifelines later in the project, once I’d properly and finally reinstalled the stanchions and pulpits, to ensure accuracy and quality new product.
Total time billed on this job today: 2 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 22°. partly clear. Forecast for the day: Sun, 50, windy.
Tuesday
Now that the topside paint was complete, I could remove the paper and masking from the lower edge, also known as the top of the boottop, so that I could later access this area for its own painting soon. I also removed the masking tape from the rubrail and forward deadlights, simply because I could and it was less I’d need to remove later. However, I left all the upper masking and plastic covering alone for now.
Beyond this, there was little else to do for the moment on this project, as I had to give the fresh paint additional cure time before I could overmask to continue work on the boottop.
Total time billed on this job today: 1.5 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 22°. partly clear. Forecast for the day: Sun, 50, windy.
Monday
After final preparations, I spray-applied three coats of Alexseal jade mist green gloss topcoat to the hull.
Total time billed on this job today: 3.5 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 28°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny, 30s
Friday
Now that the hull was primed, sanded, and clean, my next step was to strike and mark a new boottop. Moving the staging out of the way for the moment, I made new marks at stem and stern 3″ above the waterline I’d marked and masked earlier; this would be the visual height of the new boottop, and the same as the one I’d removed from the hull as it came to me. As before, I used a small level and straightedge to transfer up the 3″ height at stem and stern. Once I had the reference marks, I set up my horizontal string beams again and leveled them at the proper height both bow and stern.
In my usual way, I used a taut string to mark the top of the new boottop at this height, along both sides of the hull.
Once I had all the marks on each side, before removing the horizontal beam at the bow I made a new pencil mark a further 1-1/2″ up from the top of the new boottop so I could have a reference point to create a sheered boottop at the bow, which I’d lay out shortly.
Afterwards, I removed the beams and masked off the top of the new boottop (i.e. the bottom edge of the new topsides paint), following the marks I made and fairing by eye as needed.
At the bow, I chose to create a slightly sheered boottop, where the top edge curved upwards towards the stem. To my eye, this treatment is required in most cases, not to create some sort of wacky funhouse-curvy version of a stripe, but rather to subtly enhance appearance by eliminating the trope l’oeil that occurs as bows grow higher and the hull angles in towards the waterline; this creates the impression that the striping becomes narrower. A nice curve leading to a wider stripe at the stem reduces this and looks appropriate in its own right when coupled with a bold sheerline and utter height of the bows on this boat.
In any event, I made a mark nine feet aft from the stem on each side, an point I chose arbitrarily and simply because to my eye it looked like the right place to begin the sheering based on the shape of the hull. From here, working entirely by eye, I masked off a new, higher line that gently faired into the existing tape line at the 9′ mark, then curved gently up to the new mark on the stem, which was 1-1/2″ higher than the “straight” stripe I’d masked off before.
Finally, I applied masking paper beneath the new tape to cover the eventual boottop area and protect it from overspray when I sprayed the topsides later.
I reset the staging and went around the hull closely, fine-tuning a few areas with fine sandpaper where the original sanding had missed (some areas only appear once the original sanding dust is removed). Then, after spot-cleaning the dust from these areas, I focused once more on the shop itself and washed again the staging and floor to remove final dust and get things as clean as possible. Afterwards, I completed the final solvent wash, this time with the fancy solvent supplied by the paint manufacturer for this purpose. I set up additional task lighting through the shop to highlight the hull and help during the topcoating process, as the only way to keep track of the spraying is with as much light as possible over the hull. I prepared some of my equipment and paint and looked forward to spraying the topcoats next time.
Total time billed on this job today: 4.25 hours
0600 Weather Observation: 32°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny and breezy, 40°