November 25, 2015
Aventura 38
Wednesday
After some final preparations, I got back to work in the cabin, and applied the first of probably two coats of semi-gloss white enamel to the areas I’d primed earlier. In these photos, the paint’s still wet, so it looks glossier than the final finish.
At the stem, I made cuts in the new toerails to accommodate the stem piece, using reference marks I’d made earlier, along with the actual old stem sections to confirm the positioning. Then, I cleaned up the sealant that had been beneath parts of the rail ends, and made a pattern of the area to use in creating new stem pieces.
At the stern, I repeated this process with the taffrail, first cutting away the excess toerail, then patterning the areas using the original taffrail sections as a guide.
With the pattern cut out, I transferred the shapes to a piece of teak stock and cut out the raw pieces, leaving them a little oversized at the ends to allow room for some fine-tuning where they met each other on centerline, and also where they met the toerails at the new cuts. Then, I test-fit the sections, one at a time, making adjustments as needed to first one section, then the other, before temporarily securing the pieces with screws (same fastening protocol as the toerails) to check the fit and make final notations for fine-tuning on the bench before final shaping.
Afterwards, I sanded the two sections, rounded corners where necessary, and applied a sealer coat of varnish, which I’d leave to cure before installing the new pieces.
Total time billed on this job today: 5.5 hours
0600 Weather Report:
15°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, highs near 40.