I finished up the sanding around the companionway, all by hand and focusing on the rails and areas that had been covered by the hatch (which I’d kept in place for the duration of the deck work to protect the interior).  With the sanding complete to match the rest of the decks, I cleaned up and masked off the companionway for painting.

Next, I went around with a 1/8″ drill bit and drilled pilot holes (only a short way into the decks) at the various hardware locations where I’d marked earlier.  At some locations, where the positioning of the hardware would be self-evident, I drilled a single hole for basic alignment purposes; other locations required more holes to ensure proper alignment.  In any event, these holes were for location purpose only and not necessarily the absolute final position of the hardware holes themselves.  (In other words, one shouldn’t use them to drill actual fastener holes without placing the hardware in position first).

After a final vacuum over the decks, I solvent-washed again with the manufacturer’s proprietary solvent designed for the purpose.

Meanwhile, I prepared spray equipment and painting supplies and the myriad other tasks required to get ready for the next few weeks of priming and painting, along with some additional deck and staging preparations so I could walk and kneel on the decks as required in order to reach the inboard portions of the cockpit (particularly the well) and the coachroof during the first stage of priming.

I had somewhere I had to be later in the day, so had only a short time to accomplish anything.  I continued with the masking tasks, working on the two deck hatches to finish up all deck masking other than the companionway, which I needed to sand first (where the hatch had been in the way before).

Next, I covered the hull with plastic to protect against overspray, and added a strip of paper at the top edge to avoid the paint-flaking problems that happen with plastic alone.

To round out my short work day, I used my hardware location patterns to mark with a Sharpie the fastener hole locations all around the sidedecks.  Later, I’d drill small pilot holes in at least some of these locations, which holes could later be used as basic reference points to align the actual hardware in the correct positions to mark and drill the actual fastener holes.

The second go-round of the dodger template got underway first thing.  Armed with new track sections and renewed resolve, Jason set to work with the existing frame and top pattern (which had stayed on the boat in the meantime), and then worked to establish the all-important windshield angle that had proved elusive last time.  The general goal was for the dodger shape to recall the angle at the forward edge of the cabin trunk, somewhere around 42°, so with the frame set up and a stiff batten, determining where that angle would land on the centerline created the first key point required to establish the rest of the parameters defining the front part of the dodger and installing the three track sections.  For reference, the center track, mounted on the sea hood, had been installed roughly 6″ aft on center from where it ended up this time; there’s a blotch of (sanded) fairing compound visible at the center behind the track in the third photo below that is the filled hole from last week’s installation.  So the new track locations were substantially further forward, which of course was what was necessary and expected this time.

With the tracks installed, the rest of hte templating process went quickly and successfully, and the new shape with its angular windshield (and resulting expansive “dashboard” on the inside) matched our expectations, the angle of the cabin trunk, and the overall shape and appearance of the boat to create the intended and desired result.

Once Jason left, I got back to masking for the remainder of the day, working my way along and masking ports and deadlights, various hardware, and the openings for the two cockpit locker hatches.

For this boat, I planned to do all the deck priming and painting first, then move on to the hull; normally I prefer to do the primers for hull and deck concurrently.  But in this case, moving the staging back and forth would be too complicated and time-consuming, and didn’t make sense.  So I had to establish a masking point between hull and deck

On the hull, the deck paint would eventually extend roughly to the line of the original seam in the hull-deck joint (now glassed over smoothly), and with no rubrail to be reinstalled on this project, this line needed to be clean and accurate.    After some consideration, and concerns about 9 coats of paint (6 primers and 3 topcoats) creating a too-heavy line at the demarcation, I decided to start with a line about an inch further down the hull then where the topcoat line would ultimately be.  This would give me some room to blend in the primers and, later, properly establish the final and accurate topcoat line where it needed to be.

To begin, using the molded knuckle shape prominently visible at the forward third of the boat (which had been the original deck-hull seam), I determined the position from a nearby molded shape in the toerail, and used a compass set to this distance to make a series of marks along the length.  I’d originally set out to make a jig from the top of the toerail, but my first attempt from 1/4″ plywood proved too flimsy, and by this point I’d run through the considerations detailed above and decided to make the final line later anyway.  So for now, the markings I made were accurate enough (and probably would be anyway).  I ran a length of tape beneath my marks; this is shown below.

Next, I ran a second strip  of tape just below that.  Once I removed the top layer of tape, I had my priming line set 1″ below the final position of the paint seam.  Sometime later, I’d protect the hull beneath this line to prevent overspray.  Later in the process, once the primers were on the deck, I’d accurately mark the topcoat line back around the position of the forward knuckle, and aft from there.

More masking and related prep remained, but for now the day was done.

Over the weekend, I continued work on the last round of newly-filled fastener holes and other ongoing fairing work.  A short work session of 1.5 hours on Saturday to sand the filler from the day before and reapply additional filler thereafter advanced the project by a full day in elapsed time.  At the large hole on the transom coaming, which I’d filled last time, I ground out a shallow dish and added a piece of lightweight fiberglass to reinforce the larger filled hole; then, later I cheated and applied a heavy layer of fairing compound over the top of the patch, hoping to eliminate any need for further work on this one spot.

Now, at the beginning of the week, I sanded all these areas once more, and sanded all the remaining areas of the cockpit and cockpit well  through the final finishing grits to prepare everything as needed, including smoothing the faired areas and all the previously-unsanded gelcoated surfaces.  Happily, my work over the weekend now meant that this was the last round of pre-primer sanding and prep required, always a banner moment in the project.  I’d have to do a bit of detail sanding around the companionway later, once the temporary sea hood came off again after the final dodger templating, but that hardly registered on the scale of things.

With sanding complete, I did another intensive cleaning of all areas of the shop and boat, beginning with a good blowdown with compressed air (followed by open-door airing), sweeping, vacuuming, and then a water wash of the staging, floor, and nearby areas to settle dust and give everything a much-needed rinse.

Afterwards, I solvent-washed the deck and hull to fully clean these areas and allow me to move forward with final pre-primer preparations.

These processes took most of the day, but with the boat finally cleaned up, I used what little time was left to get a start on masking, beginning with some of the opening port frames (just two for the moment).  I’d continue masking and related prep next time.

I removed the temporary coaming stand-ins and reamed out the various screw holes left from the initial dodger template process, along with various other fastener holes that I’d so far left unfilled.  The owners had agreed that I should simply fill all remaining holes, including several on the aft edge of the cockpit.  With preparations complete, and after cleaning up appropriately, I filled all the holes with fairing compound, and applied a third round to portions of the cockpit as needed.

Next, I did the final rounds of finish sanding on the coachroof, stopping just short of the areas where I’d filled the screw holes, and focusing some extra attention on the hatch frames, removing any last bits of paint from the top surfaces of both frames and sanding by hand as needed.  For the moment, the temporarily-installed sea hood prevented access to the companionway rails and area forward of the companionway, so those would end up being one of the last areas to get its final sanding once I removed the temporary installation after the dodger template was complete.

I lightly sanded the foredeck and sidedecks with the final grits of 80-120, completing the pre-primer work there.

For the moment, that was about all I could do to move things forward on the boat herself, so I finished up the day’s work by gluing up with epoxy the two blanks for the cockpit coamings.

To prepare the boat for the dodger patterning later in the day. I made up some quick plywood mockups of the forward part of the coamings, using the original coamings as a guide to cut the patterns.  I only had enough scrap for about 30″ on each side, but that was enough to get to the winch stand location, which was the main reason for making the mockups, as the winch location would dictate firmly the positioning of the dodger wing.

I secured the “coamings” to the boat with some dabs of hot glue, and bolted the winch stands through the plywood to hold them in the proper position.  The winch stands’ location itself was dictated mainly by winch handle clearance to the nearby stanchion mount, just aft of the stands, which threatened winch handle and knuckle clearance if the winches were moved much farther aft.   I’d determined all this much earlier in the process when I was still installing core in the sidedecks, and had built in solid fiberglass patches beneath the feet of the winch stands in this general area on both sides.  I translated my original measurements (along the deck edge from the indistinct curved edge of the molded coaming blocks) to a more linear, repeatable measurement along the top edge of the coaming between the cabin trunk and leading edge of the winch stand, 28″.

Next, I temporarily installed the sea hood with four screws to hold it in place.

I had some time left before the meeting in late morning, and with nothing I could do on the boat for the moment, I turned to the teak boards for the coamings.  Earlier, I’d planed these to a finished thickness of around 15/16″, or maybe 7/8″, and now I laid out all four boards along with the original coamings to pair the boards for each side, working mainly off color and grain appearance to match the boards together.  I couldn’t get single boards wide enough to do the coamings in one piece, and couldn’t work with that kind of width in my planer even if I could.

I straightened one edge of each board with a saw and a jig, working to minimize material loss since I didn’t have much extra width to spare for the forwardmost parts of the coamings.  With one straight side, I ran one board–the bottom board in each set, since it looked like I could make the bottom edge of the coamings straight–through the table saw to create a parallel, straight edge.  The top edge didn’t need to be recut since the angled shape of the coamings would later take care of removing that, and I needed all the width I could get for that first inch or two of the coamings at the forward ends.  Now the pairs of boards were ready to be edge-glued together in the near future, after which I could cut the actual coamings to size.

I spent the rest of the day with the boatowners and dodger contractor on the template and related steps for the new dodger.    The details of the new frame and overall appearance of the dodger had been worked out in advance.  Note that the handrails secured between the two sections of frame are temporarily installed on the inside to hold the frame properly, but not get in the way of the pattern outside.  Not shown is a very nice crowned handrail for the aft edge of the frame, facing the cockpit, which would be welded in place before final fitting.

The setup and patterning went as usual, but somehow after the tracks were screwed in place according to measurements and a pattern Jason had made, the angle of the windshield didn’t end up as intended:  the goal all along had been to more or less recreate the angle at the leading edge of the cabin house (about 41° ), but when the pattern material went on after laying out and temporarily installing the tracks on both sides and along the sea hood, the angle was substantially less, somewhere in the 30s.  It didn’t look bad, but it wasn’t what had been intended all along; the owners had rightfully wanted a much sleeker dodger that fit the design of the boat, after enduring a boxy, ugly dodger for the past 10 years with the boat.

Unfortunately the only way forward was to re-make the bent plastic tracks that secure the dodger to the deck and move them forward (since they’d been cut to length, moving them forward as is couldn’t work), which would take a couple days between getting the material and bending them at Jason’s shop.  That said, the other details of the frame and dodger were just where everyone wanted, and the process had advanced substantially.  I had a few new holes in the coachroof to fill, where the tracks had been installed for the fitting, but fortunately that was no problem at this stage.  The new pattern would happen early next week.  In the meantime, I’d press on with the remaining prepwork I had to complete to ready the boat for high-build primer soonest.

Once more I sanded the cockpit areas, this time with finer grit discs, bringing the various faired edges closer to where they needed to be, but with a number of low  areas around the edges still to be dealt with; such is the way of fairing.  But things were at the point where I expected one more round of filling would take care of things for the most part, and after that I could move on to the final stage of finish sanding the entire cockpit.

Next, I sanded the various fillets along the deck edges as needed, then finish-sanded the cabin sides through 80-120 grits on a 4″ palm sander and by hand as needed.  The cabin sides were original gelcoat in good condition, so sanding was straightforward.

Then, I continued by sanding the toerails on all sides with 120 grit.  The inside edges of the toerails had been sanded a number of times during the nearby work on the decks and fillets, and the outside of the rails required only the light sanding to prepare for the next steps.

With a meeting planned on the morrow with the owners and the dodger contractor to pattern the new dodger, I turned my focus to preparing the boat, which meant lots of cleanup.  Knowing of this date in advance, I’d not bothered to clean up the shop after last week’s work, and the interior of the boat needed some cleanup after many weeks of major deck work, so now it was time to get things ready for the meeting, which took up the remainder of the day.

The morning’s round of sanding removed the bulk of the skim coat of fairing compound from the cockpit, and highlighted the areas requiring additional attention, as expected.

With a finishing sander and by hand, I sanded the foredeck fillets and other areas where I’d spot-applied fairing compound around the rest of the decks.  This left most of the transitions between deck and toerail in good shape, with just some minor marks to fine-tune.

After cleanup, I applied additional fairing compound to the cockpit areas, mainly at the edges where I was blending the raised nonskid pattern areas with the surrounding decks.  At the four scupper locations, I chose to leave the original contours and end the new fairing at a pre-molded corner near each of the drains, which would maintain the shallow sumps around these fittings.

Next, I went around the boat and spot-applied fairing compound as needed at the toerails and nearby fillets, along with the toerail scuppers.

I finished up the day’s work by removing the old sealant from the ports and deadlight openings on the port side.  Soon I’d be sanding and preparing these cabin sides, one of the last untouched areas so far (along with the cockpit well), and removing the rest of the old sealant was the last obstacle to the next steps.

My focus turned to the cockpit, which hadn’t seen much direct attention yet beyond the repairs at the aft end.  Now, along with sanding the fairing compound on the repairs, I sanded all the cockpit nonskid as I’d done elsewhere on the boat, removing the bulk of the texture and preparing it for additional work.

Continuing, I worked on the foredeck to sand as needed the most recent application of fairing compound, which had been concentrated along the edges and centerline.  A few minor tool marks remained here and there, but otherwise the foredeck was ready for final filleting work along the toerails and other areas.

Along the quarters, I sanded the fillets I’d installed along the toerails.

With the day’s sanding complete, I cleaned up the cockpit and applied a skim coat of fairing compound to all the nonskid areas, as well as some additional work on the repairs at the after end.

After cleaning applicable areas of the main deck, I applied fillets along the toerails at the foredeck, blending them into the existing fillets along the sidedecks.

At the aft end of the boat, I spot-applied fairing compound where needed to fine-tune the new fillets.  The filleting tended to leave a thin, low/unsanded line on the deck just inboard of the fillet, from the way the application tool interacted with the two surfaces, so most of this round of filling was a basic skim coat to clean up this tiny void, along with dressing up the toerail scuppers where needed and some related areas.

 

Another good round of sanding to start the day, and finish off the week.  This time, I sanded the coachroof with the finishing sander and 80-120 grits, leaving only detail and hand work for another time in order to finish off the prep there.

In the cockpit, I sanded the instrument patches and cockpit bulkhead with the same finishing grits, then moved on to the three recent repairs at the aft end.  Since I was in the area, I chose to sand the nonskid in the after part of the cockpit as well, saving the rest of the cockpit for next week’s agenda.  Then, I lightly sanded with the finishing grits the minor repairs to the top edge of the transom, and the counter through hulls.

On the foredeck, I sanded the skim coat, which left only the expected low spots at the edges and centerline, where I was blending the nonskid with the recessed smooth borders.

After a thorough cleanup of cockpit, sidedecks, and foredeck, I applied additional fairing compound to the cockpit repairs and foredeck as needed.

Next, I focused on some detail fairing, using my little filleting squeegee to install epoxy fillets along the after sections of the toerail, in the toerail scuppers, and a few other areas around the boat.

This work set me up well for a brisk start to the next week.  To finish up the day, and begin knocking off a low-tolerance task on my list, I worked on removing old sealant from around the opening ports, beginning on the starboard side.  The owner had removed the trim rings but left the well-bedded port bodies in place, as there was no need to remove them, and now there was plenty of butyl sealant left behind that I needed to clean up before final surface prep on the cabin sides, which I’d yet to touch.  I used a small and larger scraper to remove the sealant, which was tenacious in its own way even though it wasn’t too difficult to remove.  I also scraped away old silicone from the edges of the fixed deadlights on this side.  With bright sun streaming through the windows in the late afternoon, belying the frigid air outside, this less-favorite job proved a quiet and productive way to end the week.  I’d do the same with the port ports some other time in the near future.