February 16, 2016
Danusia 37
Tuesday
One more washing and light sanding, and I was done with the stern tube repair, so I went ahead and reinstalled the propeller, along with a new zinc on the special nut at the end. It was interesting to compare the old zinc with the new one. The old cotter pin had either been purposely broken off inside the shaft, or accidentally so, so I knocked out the remains and replaced it through the zinc’s special prop nut.
I lightly sanded the primer on the pedestal and foredeck, and after cleaning up I masked off the rest of the starboard side of the foredeck so I could repaint the area with paint that matched the existing areas. Because the deck was conveniently sectioned with white borders, I chose to paint this entire area to better blend in the repaired area around the windlass. With past experience using Kiwi-grip (the paint that a previous owner had applied to the decks sometime before), I knew to mask in a wider area (especially where the sides of the roller might touch) because the stuff was messy to work with.
With preparations complete, I applied a coat of cream-colored Kiwi-grip that I fortunately had on hand, and which matched the paint already on deck. Once the paint had cured just barely past the potential disaster stage, I removed the masking tape from the edges, as leaving the tape on till this particular paint cured completely would pull up the edges. This was always my least-favorite feature of using this particular product, but in this case was uneventful. The end result looked good, and I’d leave the new paint to cure for at least a full work day before attempting the final installation of the windlass foot switches over the fresh surface. Later, I removed the masking tape from the cleat, choosing to wait to lean over the fresh surface till it was basically dry.
Next, I applied a coat of primer to the steering pedestal–the entire thing this time.
My work list grew ever shorter, with most of the remaining work to be done on the hull, but before I moved the staging down to hull height I went around and installed new set screws in all the stanchion bases, in the existing holes. These, along with the fixing screws that passed into each stanchion, would help hold the stanchions tightly in place and prevent wobbling. I had to clean out a couple of the holes with a 1/4-20 tap, but otherwise the project was without note. I put a little waterproof grease on the screws since a new winter cover would require annual removal of the stanchions, and this would prevent the set screws from freezing.
I continued the varnish work on the cockpit table with another coat on the top surface (4).
With whatever work remained on deck and inside the boat just as do-able without the staging, and a need to continue work on the remains of the project list, I spent the rest of the afternoon breaking down and resetting the staging at hull height.
Total time billed on this job today: 5.75 hours
0600 Weather Report:
22°, 2″ of snow plus some freezing rain overnight, light freezing rain/drizzle. Forecast for the day: continuing to warm through the 30s and 40s and even the 50s, turning to all rain, with another round of heavy rain and wind due late