< Back to Rhodes 18

Monday

After a quick water wash, I sanded the hull with 80 and 120 grit paper on a 6″ orbital finishing sander, removing the excess skim coat of epoxy and further smoothing the surface.  In most areas, this treatment had had the desired effect:  while the surface was far from, and never would be, perfect, the skim coat had helped to fill and stabilize the heavy crazing throughout.  Some of the deeper divots, mainly on the port side, would require some additional filling.

Similarly, I sanded the deck areas, which showed a like improvement in overall condition and character after the skim coat and additional sanding.    The decks were probably far from truly fair even when this boat left the factory 60 years ago, and was rather flexible with any number of (basically unnoticeable to the eye) dips and curves and the like; while the skim coat had filled some of the lower (and minor) undulations, I would make no overt attempt to really fair either hull or deck beyond these basic levels, other than ensuring relative fairness throughout the epoxy filling process.  As with the hull, there’d be certain areas requiring additional filling for this process.

After vacuum and solvent wash, I applied additional epoxy fairing material to the hull and deck as required, concentrating on those areas where the original cracking or damage had been deep enough that the initial coat hadn’t completely filled the voids.  I hoped that this round on both hull and deck would more or less wrap up the basic surface prep in those areas; the interior and some portions of the deck (mainly the mast partners area) would require some additional work and minor repairs, which I’d get to in due course.

Total time billed on this job today:  4.75 hours

0600 Weather Report:
50°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  sunny, near 80

< Back to Rhodes 18

Friday

I vacuumed off the hull and deck, then washed these surfaces with acetone to prepare for the next steps.  Before continuing, I took a moment to mask off the scribe mark at the waterline so I wouldn’t lose this during the upcoming hull surfacing work.

Now I applied a skim coat of epoxy fairing material–mixed a little on the thin side–over the entire deck, including the molded coamings.  My goal with this was to force epoxy as much as possible into the myriad cracks and other surface interruptions on deck, helping to stabilize and, ultimately, smooth the surface to prepare for primer.

Afterwards, I repeated the process with the hull.  The starboard side was in better condition than the port, which featured a heavier crazing pattern and also several particular areas where the gelcoat was pocked with long-burst “blisters” or pocks, notably at the turn of the bilge on the quarter, the port bow a few feet aft from the stem, and the forward part of the hull just above the waterline.

Total time billed on this job today:  3 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
45°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  Sunny, 70s

< Back to Rhodes 18

Thursday

Continuing where I left off, I sanded the remainder of the hull–the entire port side and  transom, working through 40 and 80 grit paper to remove the heavy, cracked old coatings.  The gelcoat, particularly close to the waterline, featured various heavy cracks and crazing, as well as pockmarks and areas where the gelcoat had cracked away, along with some older repairs.  The worst area was a few feet aft of the stem.

Under all the paint on the transom, I uncovered an old name, the ghost of which remained in the original gelcoat:  Glass Sloop.  I’m sure that owning a boat made from fiberglass was a jaw-dropping novelty in 1957.  (Amazingly, there are some even today who still feel fiberglass boats are something newfangled and somehow unworthy.  Silly them.)

Next, I finished up the deck sanding to remove the old coatings.  The deck gelcoat was badly crazed beneath and would require a fair bit of work to achieve a reasonable substrate for paint.  My hand for scale.

Most of the interior of the boat–at least the hull areas–required just a brief-ish scuffing with coarse paper, as the existing paint was sound and well-adhered, and there was no reason to go further.

The cockpit seats/air tanks required more substantial sanding to remove the flaky old coatings back to the (as expected) crazed and cracked original gelcoat.

There were several old repairs and/or areas that would require minor repair on the air tanks and near the centerboard trunk.

Additionally, the mast partners hole in the aft part of the foredeck had apparently been damaged long ago, probably when the mast was being stepped or unstepped and started to flop sideways before it was pulled all the way out of (or into) the hole, and the old repair was unworthy; my initial sanding removed the floppy, dry old cloth and shattered laminate from one side of the opening, but I’d surely come back to this for additional demolition work before working to rebuild the opening properly.  This looks like a sad little lopsided heart.

Total time billed on this job today:  7.75 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
50°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  Sunny, high 70s

< Back to Rhodes 18

Tuesday

Armed with a 5″ sander and 40 grit discs, I started at the starboard bow and worked to remove the old coatings from the hull.  I found a number of layers as I sanded, and fine-tuned the sanding process over time as I found the approach that worked the most efficiently.  The old coatings–mainly the heavy off-white top coat and a tan layer beneath the pale green–tended to gunk up the sanding discs quickly, slowing the process, but no worse than anything I was used to.

Over the course of a few hours, I removed all the old paint from the starboard side of the hull, from gunwale to just below the scribed waterline (the old blue stripe was painted just below the scribe, explaining why it looked too low).  Once I’d removed the bulk of the paint with the coarser discs, I switched to 80 grit for a final (for now) cleaning pass to smooth the surface and remove any final bits of old paint. Things were looking vastly improved already.

The old gelcoat was in fair condition, with plenty of crazing and cracking, but essentially sound for all that.  There’d be plenty of work ahead to prepare it for new coatings, however.

Weary of working on the hull, but with time still available, I turned to the starboard deck, and removed the old paint and nonskid from the foredeck aft.  I couldn’t reach the foredeck well enough for the required leverage from my position on the ground, so I’d finish that up another time.  The gray deck gelcoat beneath the old coatings was in poor-ish condition, with heavy crazing and cracking and that dry, almost crumbly texture common to boats from this era.

Total time billed on this job today:  4 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
45°, sunny.  Forecast for the day:  becoming more cloudy, possible shower, then possible thunderstorms in the afternoon.

< Back to Rhodes 18

Monday

A local owner asked me to help him with some of the initial stages of restoration work on his 1957 Rhodes 18, a classic daysailer that had been rather neglected over the years.  I planned to work on the project sporadically over the coming weeks, in and around other commitments I had.

The condition upon arrival was quite poor, with badly weathered woodwork, chipped, cracked, crazed, checkered, and peeling paint and gelcoat, and a general state of disrepair that might make this seem an unworthy project.    The hull condition was outwardly horrific, with thick layers of mystery paint peeling off in sheets, and crazing visible in the underlying layers.  The deck was well-crazed, but the interior, other than being worn and tired, was in basically good condition.

However, the design was unique and interesting, and with still-active classes of the boat hither and yon, as well as the essentially sound condition of the boat (which also had an excellent rig and sails), we decided to dive in and see what we could make of her.

My first task was to support and level the boat on her little trailer.  One of the tires was badly cracked and losing air, so I jacked the trailer off both wheels, leveled the boat, and blocked the trailer tongue as well, which  lacked its own jack.

The original coamings were still in place, the only woodwork remaining, and there was still some hardware on deck.

During the remainder of the day, I removed all the hardware, as well as the coamings.  The hardware wasn’t difficult to remove, and access was quite good to all areas.  The old coamings were secured with many, many old bronze screws–the builders were of the “never use one where four will do” mentality–and the exposed screw heads had been sanded and worn down over the years, so most of the head stripped out during removal, forcing me to drill the heads in order to remove the coamings.    I did want to save the original coamings intact, if possible, for future use as patterns during replacement, which the owner would likely do himself once I was done with the boat.

With all that out of the way, I could think about getting down to brass tacks.  Before beginning surface preparations on the hull, I noted the existing position of the waterline, aka bottom edge of a painted stripe on the hull.  Although my feeling was the stripe was not in exactly the right location, evidenced by the staining at the waterline and other intangible factors, noting the existing position would at least give a starting point for the final coatings later.  I used easily-duplicatable reference points for my measuring tape at both stem and stern.  For the record, the measurements of note were 20-1/2″ at the stern, and 33″ at the stem.

With time running short on the day, I prepared some tools and equipment for sanding, and then used a putty knife to remove the worst pieces of the loose, thick, peeling coating on the hull.  I didn’t know what the outer coating was, but it seemed a lot like latex paint–thick, full of brush marks, and failing and peeling like a dried mud creek bed.  But in about 15 minutes’ time, I scraped away the worst parts.  Time would tell how this coating would resist sanding, but I’d soon see.

Total time billed on this job today:  3.75 hours

0600 Weather Observation:
55°, clouds and fog.  Forecast for the day:  Clearing, becoming sunny, high in the upper 70s