February 16, 2022

Lyra Phase 2-37

Wednesday

With the deck paint complete, I spent the first part of the day removing all the masking from the deck areas.

To prepare for the hull paint, I couldn’t mask over the fresh deck paint yet and would have to wait another day, but in the meantime there was plenty to keep me busy, starting with laying out and masking the boottop.  I chose 2-1/4″ for the visual height of the new stripe, and to create the end reference marks required I used a square and level to mark the new point stem and stern 2-1/4″ above the waterline (i.e. top of the bottom paint), which I’d marked and masked earlier in the process.

With these two points, I could set up my horizontal beams fore and aft at the correct height, after which I used my string theory to mark the top of the new stripe on both sides of the boat, using the same techniques I always do.  Then, before removing the cross beams, I made a new mark on the stem 1″ above, as I planned to sheer (raise)the boottop through the bow sections later, a step required to make the stripe look right.

With the clutter out of the way, I masked the new line, following my pencil ticks and fairing by eye.  The top edge of the tape represented the top edge of the boottop, and the area above would be covered with the hull paint.

Once I had the line taped to my marks, I measured back from the stem (at the waterline) approximately 1/3 the length of the waterline; in this case, 8′ back looked right to me, and starting from this mark I struck a new tape line by eye forward to the tick mark 1″ above at the stem, creating a new, higher line with a slight sweep that would not be noticeable in and of itself, but would make the boottop look right when complete.

Then I covered the area beneath the tape with masking paper to complete the job.

To round out the day, I set up the staging at hull height, switching out four of the taller supports for some shorter ones amidships to make it easier to walk around, then set up lighting as needed to highlight the hull, and finished up with a final solvent-wash of the topsides.  All that remained before I could spray the hull was to cover the decks, which I’d finish next time.

Total time billed on this job today:   7 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  10°, clear.   Forecast for the day:  Increasing clouds, 38°