January 15, 2025

PT11-54

Wednesday

While my main focus remained now on another project at the shop, I still worked on the dinghy most days to continue various epoxy and related steps that were close to being, but not yet, done.

On Monday, I applied a second coat of epoxy to the rudder case, after sanding lightly the first coat, and with the same batch of epoxy applied another coat inside the holes bored for the rowlocks.

On Tuesday, I continued the process on the rudder case, with a third and final coat of epoxy on all sides.

I unmasked the rowlocks, now that the epoxy work was complete there.

At the aft seat, I bunged the screw holes from installation, installing the bungs in thickened epoxy to ensure that the screw holes were filled and watertight, since the installation screws had necessarily penetrated the aft buoyancy tanks.

With this work complete, on Wednesday I could get to some of the final preparations required for primer, mainly cleanup and masking.  I pared away the excess bungs from the aft seat cleats (sorry, forgot to photograph this), and, after cleaning the inside of the boat thoroughly, masked over the various new installations on the aft hull:  aft cleats, foot cleats, and rowlock risers, along with the connecting hardware.  On the forward hull, I masked the connecting hardware and the inside of the mast tube.

Since I had varnish underway for another project at the shop, it was a good opportunity to start the process on the tiller and tiller extension.

To give me better access to the inside of the hulls for painting, I dismantled the 4×8 plywood build table I’d constructed atop one of my normal shop benches, as this work table addition had increased the height by 4″ and made things awkward for reaching inside.  With the boat essentially complete, I no longer had need for the big table, and with it dismantled, I could set one half on the now-lower-and-narrower table, and the other half on a pair of sawhorses of similar height.  Now I was ready for primer whenever I had a time window.

Total time billed on this job today: 3.75 hours