Tuesday

Preparing for the painting work ahead, I spent some time at the start of the day to assess and order the various materials and paints needed to complete the work in the immediate future.  I also finalized a list of material needed for the exterior trim work and sought information and pricing from the vendor (reply pending).  More on this in the near future.

Meanwhile, I continued with the winch island work.  Starting again with a cardboard pattern of the island, which I’d marked at the lower extent of the second layer of 1″ fiberglass, I cut and shaped the third and final laminations in the same way, ultimately creating a dense wedge-shaped assembly of solid fiberglass to fill in and level the tops of the islands.  I also trimmed the top layers on each assembly, which I’d earlier determined were larger than need be, and this brought them roughly into alignment with the other sections.  In any event, final shaping would occur later, after installation.

Next, I test-fit each assembly, juggling the pieces to achieve a level top on each winch island while arranging the laminations appropriately to fill the space.  Happy with each side, I carefully removed the pieces as is, holding them in position so I could make some reference marks for alignment between each of the three sections. The top layer (and, to a lesser extent, the middle layer) on each side was still too large, since the original patterns were made off the angled tops of the islands, and the outer shape of the islands featured a slight taper, meaning the overall size grew smaller as the level rose.  These pieces would require additional shaping to reduce their size, but for the moment I moved on.

As much as I wanted to glue up and install the three layers to the boat all at once to save time, it was already clear that any attempt to juggle all these pieces on an angled surface while coated in slippery epoxy would result in failure, so instead I decided to glue up the assemblies on the bench first.  This was a straightforward process using thickened epoxy adhesive and aligning the pieces according to the marks I’d made earlier.  I left the wedges to cure overnight.  I’d do some final shaping once the assemblies were cured and before installing them on the winch islands.

The poor condition of the original steering system had, long ago, forced its complete removal and elimination of all traces, and discussions at the time had centered around moving forward with tiller steering.  However, the owner requested that I look into the feasibility of installing a rack and pinion steering system, one of those types that places the helm at the after end of the cockpit, much as seen on various traditional boats.  To this end, I spent the rest of the morning on this project, generating a report that I sent to the owner, but is also available here for posterity.  The net result of this exercise was that the owner decided to stay with the tiller steering.

The backstay chainplate had been stored separately from the other sets of chainplates, so when I’d redrilled their holes earlier I’d forgotten about the backstay.  Now, having located the chainplate, I took the minute or two required to locate and drill the bolt holes through the transom.

Overall, there was certainly no shortage of work to do on the boat, with dozens of jobs ahead, but with my immediate focus on final exterior preparations leading to priming and painting, and not having the materials on hand for the upcoming systems work, I found myself at a bit of a loss while waiting (impatiently) till I could continue work on the winch islands, which was the last job to be completed on deck before primer (other than basic preparations).  Since I wanted to reshape the fiberglass assemblies before final installation, mainly to ease the process and reduce the mess on the boat herself, I couldn’t continue work there till the assemblies had cured overnight, so I filled the rest of the day by beginning some of the masking required before paint.  Starting in the forward cabin, I masked up the port openings from inside.  The round forward-facing ports didn’t have a trim ring on the outside–the spigots were a tight fit to the openings–so here I added some additional tape on the liner to protect against the off chance that the tape within the openings was compromised during paint spraying.  The elliptical ports would receive additional masking from outside and would be essentially impenetrable.

I removed the topmost and aftermost sections of the ceiling in the forward cabin–designed for this purpose–to access the chainplate bolt holes, which I masked over now.

Moving aft, I masked over the additional two pairs of chainplate holes located within the cherry lockers on each side of the saloon.  This brought me to the end of the day; I’d continue the masking next time.

Total time billed on this job today:  7.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  35°, partly cloudy.  Forecast for the day:  Mostly cloudy, 58°

Monday

At the end of the last phase of the project, I’d installed and secured the galley sink in place, but never posted any photos of the completed installation.

My upholstery contractor had been patiently storing the new interior cushions and backrests for some time, but now was anxious to finish the job and check everything, so I cleaned up the cabin a bit before he arrived with the new upholstery.  The backrests, which covered the storage areas behind the settees, required hinges and catches for access, which I installed to complete the job.  I installed the hinges to the fiberglass settee with machine screws in tapped holes; in the final installation, I’d add nuts and washers as well.  I’d long ago installed wooden support blocks within the cabinet openings to accept the door catches, so installation was straightforward now.

Cockpit cushions:

With the cushion installation complete, I removed all the cushions and stored them in my basement for safekeeping till the end of the project.

My immediate focus was to finish up any lingering exterior work required before I could apply finish primer and topcoats.   To begin, I used the chainplates to finish marking and drilling the bolt holes through the hull.  Faithful readers may recall that sometime earlier, I’d redrilled many of the holes from inside the boat, since the exterior of many of the holes had been filled with fairing compound or covered with fiberglass during the hull and hull/deck joint work, but the topmost holes were inaccessible from within, and I’d left their completion for later.  Later was now, so I finished up the final holes and, using a countersink, milled a slight chamfer on each hole to ease any rough edges.

The main task on my short pre-primer list was the molded winch islands in the cockpit.  These winch islands featured a sharply angled top surface, for purposes unknown, but it looked goofy and caused the winches to lean severely outboard and even past the gunwales, as seen in the photos below, which were taken upon the boat’s delivery here and the early part of the disassembly long ago.

The owner, upon first seeing the boat during his visit to the shop at the beginning of the second phase of the project, pointed out that he didn’t care for the angled winch islands, nor did I, and nor could we conceive of why it would be beneficial to the operation of the winches, so he asked if we could level the tops.  I had hoped to complete the leveling work earlier, but phase 2 was consumed by interior work and there wasn’t time to get to the winch islands, though I’d sanded off the primer at one point.  Now, though, they were a priority.

My plan was to build up the top with solid fiberglass sheeting, which I had on hand.  To begin, I made a cardboard pattern of the island top (they were for all intents and purposes identical to port and starboard, so I could use the same pattern for each).  The angle of the existing winch islands was quite strong, and to bring the tops level would require almost 3″ of material at the outboard edges.

I transferred the patterns to a sheet of 1″ thick prefab fiberglass and cut out the shapes, then, holding the blanks basically level on each side, I made some marks so I could shape the inboard edges to match the sharp angle beneath.

Satisfied with the first piece, I marked its lower edge and, using the original cardboard pattern now held down to the new line, created similar templates for the second piece of the solid lamination, and cut and shaped these to fit by the end of business.  The top section on each side was a bit oversized, but now with the second piece in place I marked the tops so I could make another saw cut to trim them down before continuing.

I’d need one more smallish section to complete the build-up, but I’d finish that next time.

Total time billed on this job today:  8.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  44°, partly cloudy.  Forecast for the day:  Mostly sunny, 63°

Friday

Before getting back to work on Scupper for the final phase of the project, I chose to relocate the boat in the shop bay.  During the interior work, and to accommodate another project in the bay, I’d moved the boat far over to one side of the shop, but now I needed her back in the center of the bay to provide access to all sides of the boat for staging and upcoming exterior paint work.

Thusly positioned, I continued by installing the staging at deck height so I could get to work on a few final details before moving into priming and painting.

Total time billed on this job today:   2 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  45°, mainly cloudy.  Forecast for the day:  Partly cloudy, 50°

Friday

One advantage of an electric propulsion motor from an installer’s point of view is that the assembly is smaller and lighter than a diesel engine, but that said the motor was still quite heavy and rather ungainly to maneuver.  To get the motor up and into the boat for the beginnings of installation, I put it into a large tote bag, which made it relatively easy to get up the ladder, into the cockpit, then down safely into the cabin, and eventually into the engine room.

My immediate goal was to finalize the position of the motor (I might slip and call it an engine) in the engine space, and to align it properly with the stern tube and a stand-in propeller shaft.  The configuration of the aperture and rudder prohibited installation of the shaft from outside, so before I could permanently install the motor I’d have to measure for, order, and obtain the new propeller shaft.  The output shaft from the electric motor featured a typical coupling on the end, ready for easy mating with a standard shaft coupling, one of which I had on hand.  Using a length of 1″ fiberglass tube as a propeller shaft, I installed the coupling and inserted the shaft from inside the stern tube.

The small aperture size, and again the interference from the rudder, also meant that I planned to install the new propeller over the shaft before final engine installation, and to that end I’d already purchased the 10×8 3-blade propeller required for and specified by the electric motor manufacturer for this boat and her undersized aperture.  The first photos here, dating to June 2017, show the original propeller and the aperture setup; the final photo shows the new propeller.

With the shaft now in place from inside, I moved the electric motor into position on the platform I’d built earlier (using dimensions from the motor manufacturer to determine its height vis-a-vis the existing stern tube).  The L-shaped mounting brackets were already in place on the motor, but I’d not yet installed the actual adjustable feet, so, not unexpectedly, the motor sat about 2″ too low.

I set up the four adjustable mounts with nuts and washers at 2″ above the base, then installed these in the slotted holes on the mounting brackets.  This raised the motor, and its output shaft coupling, to virtually the perfect height and alignment with the propeller shaft coupling.

After minor adjustments to the motor’s position on the platform as I optimized its longitudinal position and fine-tuned the couplings’ positions, I secured the two couplings together temporarily.

With the engine’s position now set, I finalized the positions of the four adjustable mounts on the platform.  With transverse slotted holes in the engine brackets, I chose to keep the mounting studs in just a bit (3/4″) from the outermost reaches of the slots to allow some room for adjustment later if needed, and used a small spacer block to set all four locations in this way.  Then, I marked the engine platform around each mount so I could locate and permanently install them momentarily.

With the motor where it belonged, outside the boat I measured for the actual shaft length.  The piece of fiberglass I was using ended 3″ forward of the rudder, and after reviewing photos of the original configuration and how far aft the shaft projected, I decided that the new shaft should be 2″ longer than whatever the length of my fiberglass stand-in was.  This would leave 1″ clearance between the shaft and the rudder, keep the propeller well aft for maximum aperture clearance, and still allow room on the shaft for a zinc forward of the propeller.

Now I could remove the electric motor once more and, after removing the adjustable mounting feet, I located them according to the marks I’d made, and bolted them to the engine foundation.  The way these sat beneath the angle brackets, and given the confines and contours of the engine room, meant that it was much easier or even required to pre-install them like this. I would make maneuvering the manageable-yet-still-heavy electric motor into place a little more awkward (needing to be careful of marring the threads on the studs), but it would be do-able.

I’d leave things here till I could get the new propeller shaft made.

With my temporary shaft out of the boat and the coupling removed, I measured the full length (29-3/4: on the generous side), and added 2″ to obtain the final shaft length of 31-3/4″.

Later in the day, after my delivery of the fitting required to finish off the faucet installation, I did indeed finish the installation, threading on the female pipe-hose fitting with pipe dope, and securing a length of hose now to make it easier later on.

With that complete, I installed the sink permanently in a bed of adhesive sealant, weighting it down till the adhesive cured by filling the sink bowl full of tools, with additional weight on top of the sink board.

Total time billed on this job today:   4.5  hours

0600 Weather Observation:  58°, fog, clouds, showers.  Forecast for the day:  Showers and rain, 69°

Thursday

With the sink in position and some tape on the countertop, I determined the location for the new faucet, a stainless steel lab faucet with a simple yet elegant design suited for this cold water-only installation.  The available clear space on the countertop and the built-in storage area just aft of the sink limited the faucet’s position to the aft starboard corner of the sink, and I ultimately chose a location here that looked right, functioned well with the sink’s position, and avoided some problematic areas beneath the countertop that would have made securing the faucet difficult.  I drilled a 7/8″ hole for the faucet shank through the thick countertop.

Despite a rather long shank on the faucet, the countertop here was too thick to allow for the securing nut to fit on and still leave enough room to thread on the required hose adapter afterwards.  This meant I had to relieve the countertop on the underside to provide enough depth for the fixing nut and hose connection.  To do this, I needed to be able to center a larger hole saw in the just-drilled hole, so I temporarily hot-glued on a scrap of thin plywood so I could start the new hole, after which I used a 2-1/2″ hole saw to remove the bottom fiberglass skin, original plywood core, and part of the original fiberglass top skin.  This gave me enough depth now to secure the fixing nut and washer and tighten the faucet securely into position.

Despite a bloated box of brass plumbing fittings, naturally I didn’t have the fitting I needed to complete the faucet installation:  a female pipe-hose connector in 3/4″ pipe size and for 1/2″ hose.    I looked for a way to adapt with what I had, since not having the right fitting meant I’d have to hold off on the final sink installation, but I had nothing that would work, so I ordered the right fitting and prepared the countertop for the sink installation to streamline that process another time.

Total time billed on this job today:   2.75 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  60°, foggy. Forecast for the day:  Showers, fog, thunderstorm, and eventually rain, 62°

Wednesday

With the interior work and this phase of the project winding down, it was a good time to start work on the cabin table, which required refinishing.  The original table, which I removed early in the project, was heavily built of (I think) teak, and while it was in generally good condition, the finish wasn’t quite good enough to consider simply sanding and varnishing, with various nicks and scrapes that would have marred such an attempt.

To begin, I disassembled the table, removing the two drop leaves and their support systems, along with any hardware.  This left me with a series of manageable pieces.

I stripped the old varnish with a heat gun and scraper in the usual way and set the pieces aside for later sanding, cleanup, and eventual varnish.

Total time billed on this job today:   3.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  60°, foggy.  Forecast for the day:  Fog, then becoming sunny, 71°

Tuesday

Now that the paint work at the companionway was complete, I could unmask the area and make up one final piece of trim to cover the exposed edge at the outboard side of the opening inside.  I made the “L”-shaped piece to cover the seams in this area, and once I’d test-fit the trim I removed it once more for final sanding and shaping, and then off to the varnish room.  Later, the unpainted exterior areas of the companionway trim would receive primer and paint to match the decks themselves.

After getting unintentionally sidetracked by another, unrelated, project, I got back to things in the late afternoon with the galley. Now that the countertop was complete, I could start to do the final installations and truly complete the space, which I looked forward to.

I began with the stovetop, which I’d removed from the galley early in the project.  It was a new-condition (and apparently never-used) two-burner alcohol drop-in.  Earlier, in a slack moment, I’d cleaned up some minor water staining that had marred the otherwise perfect stove; the cutting board was still in its plastic wrapping.  I found that I needed to enlarge the existing opening a bit in order to fit the stove, even though I’d patterned the new countertop around the original opening, but after a while I got the stove to fit back in and secured it with screws through the mounting flange.

I installed the drain fitting in the sink, using sealant to secure and bed the fitting in place, and added a bronze tailpiece for easy and effective drain hose connection.  The sink fit back in its opening without an issue, but for now I left it dry-fit until I could install the faucet that was due to arrive in another day.  The sink also came with a wooden cover and cutting board which is visible in some of the photos further down the page.

To fit the locker lids in the outboard countertop required that I clean up the openings a bit, as some of the epoxy coating had gotten into the corners, but after a bit the lids fit back in properly.  Later I planned to paint the insides of the openings and the edges of the lids since they looked a little raw as is.

Total time billed on this job today:  3 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  60°, mostly clear. Forecast for the day:  Partly sunny, 75°

Monday

To finish off the doors to the forward cabin, I installed a slim piece of slippery plastic on the bottom trim, which slightly raised the doors to their final position and improved operation.  I installed the trim with screws in countersunk holes.

To secure the doors when opened, I installed brass latches at each end.

The companionway ladder and door required a latch to hold it closed on one side, plus another grab handle on the inside to help operate the door from within.  I salvaged these bronze pieces from the original doorway.

Continuing work on the galley countertop, I carefully sanded off the raised edges around the four openings, much as I’d done earlier on the loose hatches.

Afterwards, I applied some of the tabletop epoxy to the sanded and cleaned edges on the two locker openings.  I didn’t need to apply the epoxy to the stove and sink openings since the edges would be hidden by the installations.

With the countertop hatches on the bench, I installed the brass ring pulls.

After a light sanding and cleanup, I applied a second coat of semi-gloss white paint to the companionway and trim rings.

Total time billed on this job today:  4.75 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  55°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  Sunny, 80°

Wednesday

In a short work day, I continued with the companionway.  After lightly sanding the primer and cleaning up afterwards, I applied the first of at least two coats of the same semi-gloss white enamel I used elsewhere throughout the interior.

I repeated the steps on the six port trim rings.

Total time billed on this job today: 1.5 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  45°, clear.  Forecast for the day:  Sunny, 76°

Tuesday

With the countertop cured sufficiently (though full cure would take a few days), I removed all the duct tape and masking tape from the countertop and hatches. Though the epoxy coating was below the level of the masking tape along the edges of the countertop, the application process had spread some epoxy up and over the tape in several areas, which only meant it took some fine work to remove all the tape.  Without a full cure, I was wary of doing any damage to the fresh and highly glossy surface, so worked with extra care.

Removing the duct tape that had formed the dams revealed an unforeseen small problem:  the epoxy, though surface tension, had slightly climbed the duct tape dams at the countertop openings and around the hatch perimeters, leaving a raised edge when the tape was removed.

This wasn’t a problem on the stove and sink openings, where the edges would be covered by the installation flanges, but for the countertop storage lockers and lids, where the edges were the finished surface, I’d have to remove the raised part carefully.  I found I could use a sharp knife to pare away some of the excess now, but decided to leave the final resolution till later when I’d had some time to consider options.

Meanwhile, I masked off the areas to be primed and painted around the companionway, then, after final preparations, applied a coat of white primer.  At the same time, I primed the interior port trim rings.

Later, working with the two loose hatches on the bench, I sanded the edges to remove the unwanted raised epoxy, staying away from the glossy field by keeping the sandpaper angled just to remove the edge.  I worked through several grits in this process, ending at 220, with a smooth and clean edge.  To finish off the edge, I mixed a small batch of the tabletop epoxy and applied it just to the sanded edges with a brush, which worked quite well.  I’d do the same treatment to the countertop openings a little later.

Total time billed on this job today:  4 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  60°, clouds and showers.  Forecast for the day:  Showers, 65°