Starting in the cockpit, and moving outboard, I lightly sanded the fresh primer by hand and machine, smoothing the surface and preparing it for the next steps. Afterwards, I vacuumed up the dust and performed an initial solvent wash to clean the surfaces for the next stage of masking.
Normally, I’d have continued work, but with heavy snowfall outside I had to turn my attention to plowing staying ahead of the snowfall rates.
Total time billed on this job today: 3.5 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
20°, heavy snow, maybe 10-12″ since inception. Forecast for the day: snow all day, very heavy all morning and into the afternoon.
With a major winter storm predicted for Sunday night and Monday, I changed my painting plans a bit and chose to spray the finish primer coats on Sunday morning instead of Monday, rather than run the risk of losing power at some critical moment during the storm on Monday, as well as to keep my schedule more or less on track. Even ignoring the sensationalistic hype surrounding the snowstorm, it looked to be significant, and windy, and during the height of the storm wouldn’t be the ideal time to be in the middle of spraying.
So, after final preparations and tack-off, I applied three sprayed coats of epoxy-based finish primer to the deck areas.
Total time billed on this job today: 4 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
12°, cloudy, 4-5″ light, fluffy snow yesterday and overnight. Forecast for the day: heavy snow late, overnight, and Monday, 18-24″ predicted
The fine fairing compound had cured overnight, and now I sanded the decks again, concentrating on the areas I’d filled and touching up elsewhere as needed. Afterwards, I did the cleanup rounds, preparing the boat and shop for the next round of primer, along with sundry tasks like repairing a few areas where the masking tape had been damaged by the sanding.
Total time billed on this job today: 5.75 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
22°, cloudy. Forecast for the day: snow, 8″ or so predicted
By machine and hand as necessary, I sanded the decks to smooth and prepare the freshly-applied high-build primer for the next steps.
This primer step highlighted various areas requiring a bit of final attention, mainly pinholes in the old gelcoat or laminate, minor crazing, and similar minor flaws that the high-build didn’t fill on its own. So after cleanup, vacuum, and solvent wash, I applied fine epoxy fairing compound around the deck as needed, focusing mainly on the areas that would eventually be finished with gloss paint, but also in the field areas where necessary.
Total time billed on this job today: 6.5 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
14°, light sleet and freezing rain, 4-6″ of snow and sleet overnight. Forecast for the day: snow ending, warming to the 40s briefly.
I spent the morning on the final tasks required to prepare for high-build primer, starting with masking off the brightwork and whatever else needed it. I thought the all-green look for the brightwork was an interesting one. (Maybe if the boat were Bahamian.)
With the masking complete, I did my final deck cleaning, vacuuming as necessary and a final solvent wash with the paint system’s proprietary wipe-down solvent.
I spent the rest of the day preparing the paint and spray equipment and all the other little things I do to transform from workshop to paint shop. I turned up the heat to bring up the shop temperature overnight, and looked forward to applying the primer next time.
Total time billed on this job today: 5 hours
0600 Weather Observation: Missed the temperature observation. Forecast for the day: sunny, 20s
With the exterior wood refinishing complete, I removed the masking tape from all areas except the outside edges of the toerail, which was still holding the protective plastic in place over the hull.
Armed with a finishing sander and various sandpaper, I sanded all the woodwork in the cabin as needed, including the trim that I’d stripped, plus all the other trim and bulkheads to prepare them either for paint or new varnish work. My patchwork on the lower bulkheads would require some additional filling in a second round a bit later, but for now at least I had the heaviest sanding out of the way, and after cleaning up the interior was basically ready for new work.
While I still had the sanding vibe going on, I sanded the fairing compound over the repaired through hull on the bottom, more or less completing that area as well. Later, marked and drilled small pilot holes for some of the deck hardware, including the bow pulpit and lifeline stanchions, to aid me in relocating the hardware later after the painting was complete.
Now, with this final of the “dirtiest” chores complete, I could turn to the beginnings of preparation for deck primer and paint, starting with thoroughly cleaning up the boat and shop, blowing, sweeping, and vacuuming up dust from the various work over the past weeks and, later, washing down the floor and staging to settle and remove the final bits of dust.
After solvent-washing portions of the interior, I masked off some of the openings, including some hardware holes in the foredeck, the cockpit scuppers, and the insides of the port openings in the cabin. Though I was running out of time, it was still tempting to start masking some of the woodwork and deck areas to advance the project a little more before the weekend, but in the end I decided I really wannted to (as I’d planned all along) leave the fresh brightwork for several days before overmasking, so I called it a day–and a week.
Total time billed on this job today: 7 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
6°, clear. Forecast for the day: sun, increasing clouds, maybe a snow shower, 28°
My work list this week was geared towards completing various tasks that I needed (or at least wanted) done before I focused on deck primer. Chief among these tasks was, of course, the exterior wood refinishing, and this had inadvertently (can one do anything advertently?) limited some of the other chores on my list since I chose to limit new dust production. I’d postponed some of my planned interior work till later in the week, so now I focused on a few items on the list that I could do easily before turning to the third and final coat of Cetol wood finish on the exterior brightwork.
I was working on sourcing some replacement (original specification) hardware for some of the items I’d removed, and wasn’t yet sure what hardware would be going back as is. With various hardware locations and fastener holes already fully prepared, I wanted to mark their locations before I covered the deck with primer. If I’d been sure exactly what hardware would be going back, I could drill small locator holes that would survive the primer application, but I didn’t want to do that when the hole patterns might change. Instead, I created a simple paper pattern of the foredeck, where I marked the various locations–specifically the anchor chocks and foredeck cleat–with an awl and marker so I could recreate these locations later.
I did plan to mark a few other locations with a small drill bit, but I decided to wait till I was all done with the exterior wood refinishing before making drill spoils on my clean deck.
One side of the lazarette hatch, and the tiny section of aft deck behind the hatch opening itself, featured cracks that required reinforcement from within–one of those tiny tasks that I’d kept forgetting about during the past weeks. Now, I prepared these areas and applied fiberglass over the insides of the cracks to strengthen these areas before some final exterior surface preparations later in the week.
The rest of the prep work in the cabin would have to wait till later in the week, so I turned to the third and final coat of Cetol wood finish on all the exterior wood.
Total time billed on this job today: 3 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
19°, light snow. Forecast for the day: snow, a couple inches.
In the cabin, I used a heat gun and scraper to remove the old finish from the berth trim at the v-berth, and both quarterberths. The old finish was tough to remove and didn’t respond in a normal way to the heat gun, so the process was fairly laborious, compounded by the challenges in reaching the trim in the aft berths. I chose to strip these areas since the trim here was quite beat up and I thought that stripping was necessary for best appearance. In other areas, such as the shelf trim fiddles and the various bulkheads, I decided against stripping, and in a later stage I planned to sand these areas to prepare them for their own refinishing.
I didn’t want to to any tasks that would stir up too much dust while still in the middle of the exterior wood refinishing, so I held off on additional interior preparations for the moment, saving the sanding of the newly-stripped wood and other areas for another time later in the week.
Meanwhile, I lightly hand-sanded the centerboard trunk reinforcement by hand, and the inside of the head through hull patch. Outside the boat, I sanded smooth and flush the exterior of the patch to prepare it for a light layer of fairing compound over the repair.
During earlier work in the cabin, I’d removed the loose plywood veneer from a couple areas in the forward vee, and also along the port quarterberth base, so after some final cleanup I applied a coat of fairing filler to smooth out these areas. Since the plywood was essentially sound, but cosmetically unsalvageable as is, patching the areas would allow for a smooth surface for priming and painting later.
I finished up the day with the second coat of finish on the exterior wood.
Total time billed on this job today: 5.25 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
10°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny, 20s.
In the cabin, I set about removing any remaining trim from the galley and “head” areas, including the flip-up, hinged countertop/lid over the head compartment. This cleared the way for resurfacing the counters and refinishing the surrounding woodwork and paintwork, I also removed the small longitudinal bulkhead that had closed off the head area, since one side was already loose and it’d be far easier to work within once the piece was removed.
Photo from 1/30/17
Photo from 1/30/17
There was an obsolete through hull discharge from the long-removed marine head, and I removed this now, cutting through the fitting from inside and pushing out the recessed through hull, leaving a clean hole behind. Afterwards, I prepared the hull around the hole on both sides, sanding clean the inside surface (and surrounding areas in the compartment) and, outside, grinding a tapered, circular area around the hole to accept fiberglass. Finally, over a couple separate steps, I filled the old hole with a plug of structural epoxy, and when that had cured to a green state, I applied three layers of fiberglass from the outside, and one layer over the inside of the patch.
During the initial cleanup of the space, a quick tap on the old head platform released the last old bolting stud, along with a mess of rusted metal flakes from beneath, remnants of the old backing plate from the ancient installation.
There was a fairly recent repair to the aft, top edge of the centerboard trunk in the bilge, and the owner had asked me to look into it. Not knowing whether there was an ongoing issue or not, I decided simply to reinforce the repair with additional fiberglass, so after final preparations I wrapped new tabbing around the aft end and over the top of the existing repair, extending the new material further onto the original centerboard trunk.
At the end of the morning session, I took the time to solvent-wash all the exterior woodwork, since it can take a long time for the solvent to evaporate out of the bare, dry wood, and I wanted to work on masking and finishing after lunch.
During the afternoon, I masked around all the woodwork as needed, and afterwards applied the first of three coats of Cetol “light” to the woodwork. While the subject of traditional varnish had arisen during discussions with the owner–and real varnish was always my first choice in an ideal world–the existing condition of the original woodwork was such that I felt it made more sense to stick with Cetol for the refinishing, since frankly the old wood wasn’t really worthy of the extra work required for the finer finish, with various old repairs, stains, dents, and the usual collection of wear and tear, along with the natural aging and darkening of the original wood.
This newer “light” version of the original orange-tinged Cetol was lighter and less dense in color, and allowed the grain of the wood to show through more than the original type: a fair compromise in this specific case.
Total time billed on this job today: 5.75 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
24°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny, 30
