I spent the morning sanding the hull-deck joint once more, this time with the finishing sander and lighter paper as the repair neared its final contours for now.  The end result was mainly where I wanted it, other than a few tool marks and other minor areas that would require some touch-up.  Otherwise, I’d be moving on to final finish-sanding stages.

At the same time, I sanded the various small hull patches, where I’d removed damaged gelcoat, with the finishing sander and by hand, working to keep these areas fair.  I also located a couple additional areas requiring attention and dished these out as needed with a sander to prepare for fairing.

After requisite cleaning, I spot-applied epoxy fairing filler where and as needed over the hull-deck joint and the various hull patches.

The owner asked me to remove and fill the hole from the tank vent on the port forward side, so during my earlier sanding stage I’d ground out a small area around the vent and, from inside, removed the existing fitting and masked over the hole.  Later, I filled the small hole in the hull with thickened epoxy, then applied two layers of 1708 over the opening; late in the day, I added a layer of fairing compound to try and catch the repair up with the adjacent areas I’d been working on.

Finally, in those areas required, I added additional fairing compound to the small patches here and there on the hull.

I started out by applying another round of fairing filler to the hull-deck joint, wanting to ensure that I had ample time for the job.  While the overall profile of the area was good, there were numerous (slightly) low areas requiring the additional filler, as well as continued work at the top edge.  As with other times working on this area, I masked off the top and bottom edges beforehand to ensure clean lines and minimal contamination of adjacent areas with hard-to-sand epoxy, removing the tape immediately after the fairing compound application.

The topsides were in good condition, but there were several areas where the gelcoat was pockmarked with small voids.  While I knew there’d be other small repairs throughout the topsides, for the moment I focused on these known places and, as needed, marked and sanded them to prepare for epoxy filler.  The gelcoat voids were shallow, and my preparations included only removing affected material in shallow amounts, just through the yellow gelcoat in most areas.

With sanding complete, and after cleaning the affected areas, I applied a coat of epoxy fairing filler, using a wide trowel on most of the repairs.

During the remainder of the day, I continued the bulk hull prep and sanding, starting with the counter on both sides and working through 60-80 grits on the 6″ finishing sander.  From there, I continued with the transom, removing old stickers and vinyl graphics (I’d previously measured and noted details of the graphics for future reference) and sanding as needed, then working my way forward on the port side, eventually meeting the section near the bow where I’d begun the process some time before and completing the first passes.  There’d be more hull sanding to come, but the initial rounds removed gloss and prepared the surface for future steps.

In a short morning work session, I sanded the new epoxy fairing compound on the hull-deck joint with 80 grit discs.  I was pleased with how well the joint turned out after a single coat of fairing compound.  Other than some shallow and expected low areas, the contours were close to where they needed to be, with additional work ahead mainly focused on finishing off the top edge of the repair, where it transitioned to the molded toerail, and also at the stern ends.

With only a short time available, I finished up by giving the shop a rough clean after the week’s efforts.  Next time, I could continue with the second round of fairing filler, and more work sanding the remainder of the topsides.

As usual, I started the day with a round of sanding, now to scuff the new fiberglass and ease any hard edges.

After cleaning the area, I applied a coat of fairing filler over all areas, tapering it to the bottom edge of the sheer strake and, at the top edge, beginning to form a clean rounded edge to enhance and replicate the original molded character line.

I had a bit of time left in the day, so I continued work on the topsides, sanding most of the rest of the starboard side with a 6″ finishing sander and working through 60-80 grits.  I left only a smallish section on the counter that was too high to reach from the floor, and too low/far away to reach from the staging, as well as the uppermost portion of the quarter near the transom where there was fresh epoxy work.

Another round of sanding brought the hull-deck joint to a point of readiness for the next step:  fiberglassing.  Since the immediate goal was an appropriately-flat, generally fair surface, but not  a final finish, the few minor low spots leftover from trowel marks were either nothing to worry about, or something I could (and later would) fill with a skim of thickened epoxy before applying the tabbing.

After cleaning, I applied tape to both sides of the area in question, using wider tape at the base to allow room to make a sort of drip edge to help avoid any resin runs down the topsides.  A few minutes with the tape saves much potential labor in removing hardened bits of epoxy from adjacent areas.

Starting on the starboard side, with a batch of thickened epoxy–just epoxy and silica–I skimmed the prepared area with a squeegee to fill some of the remaining lows, and also to wet out the entire area in advance.  Afterwards, I applied two layers of 1708 tabbing–6″ and 4″–over the hull deck joint, keeping the layers aligned at their top edge, butting the adjacent pieces and staggering the joints between layers by half, like subway tiles.

I repeated the process on the port side.  Near the port bow, where a flared copper tube/tank vent protruded, I protected the open tube with a small square of tape, then glassed right over it; this would be easy enough to cut out and remove once the fiberglass was cured.  I also glassed over the hole on the port quarter near the transom for another tank vent, but this could be redrilled later.

These processes consumed the day.  I removed all the masking tape from each side once the resin had gelled to the point where runs were no longer an issue; the few runs that occurred happened mainly at butt joints between pieces of tabbing.

Over the weekend, the owner finished up hardware removal on deck, including the port frames and cockpit coamings.  One of the jobs on the list coming up is to remove the existing winch islands at the cockpit and rebuild the sidedecks as needed to replace them.  The “floors” inside these islands were badly-rotted plywood and, rather than attempt to find a way to repair them, the owners chose to reconfigure the decks and use stand-alone winch stands to support the winches.  All this would happen in due course once I started work on the decks.

In the meantime, my focus remained on the hull.  I began the day with a round of sanding to clean up the epoxy fill material I’d applied to the hull-deck joint last time.

As expected, this left various low spots requiring another round of epoxy filler.  The more fair the area was before applying the fiberglass over the joint, the more fair the fiberglass would be thereafter, making finishing the joint that much easier.  I used a wider trowel as needed over portions of the seam in the midships-to-quarter sections of the boat to bring the whole area more fair from top to bottom in these “flattest” areas of the boat.

In the afternoon, with nothing more I could do at the rubrail for now, I got to work sanding the topsides to prepare them for minor repair work and eventually primer and paint.  The topsides were original gelcoat–including the striping–and despite oxidation and wear from close to 50 years of life, were in generally good condition and wouldn’t require heavy sanding or paint removal.  I chose my 6″ orbital finishing sander for  the job, and chose also to start with the bow sections on both sides, as I think the bows are the part of the boat I like sanding least of all, so best to get them out of the way.  I began at the waterline, working from floor level, and sanded up as high as I could (about a sanding pad’s width above the boottop) from the bow stand on the port side around to the same place to starboard.  I also removed an inch or two of the bottom paint to help ensure I had a clean and smoother area to apply tape later on.  I worked through 60 and 80 grits with the sander:  60 to break the surface, and 80 to smooth from there.  Sometime later, after various minor repairs, I’d go over everything with 120, but that was later.

Once I was finished from floor level, I sanded the remainder of the topsides in these sections, bringing me to the end of the day.

 

The final step before beginning to fill and fair in the hull-deck joint beneath the now-removed rubrail was to ream out the fastener holes, which would allow them to be successfully filled with epoxy, and also to prep as needed any recesses or voids present in the space between hull and deck moldings.

This was a good opportunity to highlight some of the specifics of the area on this boat.

After cleaning and solvent-washing the joint, toerail, and sheer strake (and immediately-surrounding areas), I masked off the toerail just above the prepared area to keep it free from any epoxy during application below.  Then, I applied thickened epoxy fairing filler as needed to fill the fastener holes, voids throughout the area, and begin to create a fair overall surface that I could fiberglass over when all was said and done.    The first round of filler wasn’t going to complete the work, but began to form the required contours and would make it easy for a second round to complete adequately before glasswork could begin.

During the afternoon, I wanted to move the project forward, but the next logical thing to do was to start sanding the remainder of the topsides, which, frankly, just wasn’t a Friday afternoon kind of thing to do, and would have created a new mess to clean up before the weekend, as I don’t leave the shop a mess over the weekend (I can barely manage it over a night or two).  So instead, I rolled out and cut 3′ long sections of 6″ and 4″ 1708 tabbing for the hull-deck joint–it had to be done eventually, and this was more the right speed for the end of the week.  In the past I’ve found this to be a good size to manage during installation, butting the joints and offsetting the layers by half so each seam has good overlap.

 

Armed with a different, less aggressive sander and coarse discs, I continued work on the hull-deck joint area, removing the gelcoat from the black sheer strake and going over the rest of the area I’d ground in way of the old rubrail.  This sanding session prepared the area for the new epoxy and fiberglass work ahead.  In removing the black gelcoat, I strove first to maintain the shape of the hull so that fairing the new fiberglass would be as straightforward as possible, so there low remained areas (still colored black) that required minor filling before the tabbing operation, as well as some of the still-recessed areas left from the original joint construction and where the wooden strip had been.

The sheer strake seemed almost tailor-made for this project, with its slightly raised (versus the rest of the hull) profile and perfect depth to allow easy installation of 6″ fiberglass over the seam later, which would span the joint between the molded character line in the deck molding at the top edge and the bottom edge of the proud sheer strake.

With sanding complete for the moment, I cleaned up the boat and shop to a tolerable level.  It would have been nice to move on with some additional minor prep work and epoxy filling, but I didn’t have enough time to do this before I had to leave for an appointment, so I’d continue next time.

Before starting on the prep work at the hull-deck joint/rubrail, I removed a tank vent fitting from the port quarter, as the fitting would soon be in the way.  The fitting was only hand-tight and easy to remove, and I stuck the vent back in the hose inside the locker for safekeeping.

The black sheer strake was molded so as to be slightly proud of the rest of the hull, approximately 1/8″, but at the ends the protrusion tapered off to nothing a bit below the old rubrail location.  To aid in recreating the shape later on, I took the time to make patterns of both the stern and bow on the port side; I could flip these for the starboard side so saw no need to make specific patterns for each corner.  I also made a rubbing of the Ericson logo on the quarter in case it needed to be recreated later.

Before continuing, I closed up the companionway and other hatches to keep dust out of the boat as much as possible.

I spent the remainder of the day grinding the out-turned hull and deck flanges flush (or as nearly so as possible) to their adjacent surfaces.  At the deck side, I also removed the gelcoat up as far as a molded “character line” in the toerail/deck edge, which logic and practicality dictated would probably be the end point for new tabbing in this instance.  More on this later.  I brought the flanges as flush as possible with the hull and deck moldings on either side, but had to balance this with removing too much material from the center, where the wooden strip had been and where other structural material, including interior tabbing and some kind of adhesive filler material, needed to remain in place.

Hull and deck moldings rarely, if ever, are perfectly fit and symmetrical all around, so some misalignment is standard; this is one reason manufacturers use external rubrails or trim to cover the seam.  I’d make up the differences, where needed, with epoxy filler to bring things flush all over before tabbing over the seam, but essentially and practically speaking I ground the old flanges flush all around.  I didn’t use the grinder for anything beyond the minimum required to remove the bulk of the material, and would finish up sanding and surface preparation with less aggressive tools to avoid excess fiberglass removal and maintain the existing contours of the moldings to minimize future fairing work.  This all made a bit of a mess, but with more sanding in the immediate future I just gave the hull a quick blow down, leaving the rest of the shop for cleaning later in the week.