April 1, 2025

Miss Helen 12

Tuesday

Fortunately, my early morning check of the window after installation had better results than last time:  all was sound and intact.  I still don’t know what happened to the glass the first time around, but in any event now the window was installed and looking good.

Because it’d been substantially fewer than 24 hours since installation, I chose not to do much more with the window at this point, not wanting to upset the sealant before it had a chance to fully cure, but inside I removed the temporary trim and masking tape to give me a good look at the seal from inside the glass, where the pressed-out sealant was clearly visible around all the edges.

One thing I could do was install bungs in all the screw holes in the exterior trim.  I glued these in place and left them to cure for the day.  The new trim afforded adequately deep bung holes to accept the bungs and glue.

Next, I turned to the brightwork, and after final preparations applied a coat of varnish to the coachroof handrails, hatch trim, forward face of the cabin trunk, and cockpit coamings.  It was handy in this case that the wooden cabin trunk had various places to start and stop varnish, such as the vertical corners and trim, so I could do the work in a more convenient and piecemeal fashion.

With the deck-based trim under varnish, I continued with the loose pieces in the woodshop–the companionway boards and tiller.

Then, I varnished the port cabin trunk and toerail.

I finished up with a coat on the taffrail and starboard toerail; the starboard cabin trunk would wait till the new deadlight trim was ready for varnish and I’d prepared the area.

Total time billed on this job today: 5.75 hours