January 13, 2017
Halcyon 11
Friday
I spent some time preparing various old fastener holes around the decks, mainly in the cockpit well. At each location, as needed, I used a countersink to create a wider opening to better hold fairing compound and fill these holes. Belowdecks, I masked over these, and any other deck hole penetrations, to prepare them all for filling from above.
Afterwards, I cleaned up the decks with vacuum and solvent wash, paying close attention to all the various fastener and drill holes I’d made earlier, and prepared to skim coat the decks with epoxy fairing compound in order to fill the remnants of the molded nonskid pattern, along with other minor voids and pinholes. Then, using several batches of epoxy mixed with fairing fillers, I used a trowel to cover most of the deck surfaces and cockpit with a thin layer of compound, filling the existing fastener holes at the same time.
On the port side, near the chainplates, I prepared a section of new balsa core to replace the damaged core I’d removed from this area earlier. The coring covered the inner half of the opening; I planned to build up solid fiberglass and epoxy in way of the chainplate slots themselves, which would prevent any future leakage at those slots from damaging deck core (and the same thing on the starboard side, which opening was smaller and would be entirely filled with fiberglass–no coring).
With the coring cut to fit, and other final preparations completed, I installed the new core in epoxy adhesive, and weighted it down to hold it securely to the bottom deck skin while the epoxy cured.
I’d continue work with the solid fiberglass portion of the chainplate repairs, as well as the poop deck recoring and repair, in the near future, and as I continued work on the main areas of the deck.
Total time billed on this job today: 5 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
37°, mostly clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, temperature dropping through the day