Handrails Installed

I went to the boat yesterday and spend the day there. By spending the day, it was around 8hrs or so.

I've been working on a college class for the last couple months. I've ended up getting a few weeks behind and working on it at home gets old and felt a change of location would be helpful. It was a productive day and happy it turned out well. I got some school work done and even did a little work around the boat.

It was a pretty warm day too. It got almost 70F so it's a sure sign that spring/summer is right around the corner.

While at the boat, I thought that it would be a good idea to get the handrails back on the boat. The tarps that have been covering the deck were wearing down and the ties holding them in place were breaking too. I ran back to the house and got the handrails. I also went to Home Depot and bought a countersink bit.

I taped the underside of the holes on deck to keep from dust getting all over the inside. It worked out pretty good when cleaning it up afterwards.

I drilled out the hole with a countersink. I read somewhere that countersinks help when sealing the hole with butyl tape, that I used here.

I placed the bolts only slightly above the deck and placed butyl tape around each bolt.

I was able to get everything back on the boat and happy that I have varnished wood on the boat again. Even though many of the bolts were still covered with plugs, they still lined up and got tightened without any issues.

Not long after I installed the handrails, I was looking at the sky and thought they were looking a bit dark. I also remember the forecasts were expecting rain. I repacked things back in the truck leaving the tarps from the boat on the side of the deck and on the way back to the house, it started to rain.

Today, I went to check on the handrails since it was raining all night. Everything with the handrails appeared to be dry. The only wet spots I found in the boat was by a porthole where there was previous water damage and space just below the companion way. I tightened the closure on the porthole hoping it will help and left the boat.

Even with this work, I still did some reading and homework and finished some homework.

I also did a dry fit of the thru-hull and seacock to make sure I had cut enough threads off the thru-hull and it on the hull. In order to keep the thru-hull in place, I used the boat hook that came with the boat against the fitting and a camper that is next to the boat.

I tried out the seacock, everything fit fine. When I'm able, and it's warm enough again, I'll take the epoxy supplies to the boat and install it. Priority right now is the school work and I still have several weeks of this class before I start the next one.

Varnish Work Continues

I did a little bit of varnish work today on all the handrails today. On the handrail that I used a teak cleaner on came out nice. This first picture is after one coat of varnish.

 



On the other pieces that I already had a coat of varnish, I sanded them down a bit to smooth out the finish.

I then varnished the other pieces too. This picture below, I have one of the piece I had varnished before with the one I used a teak cleaner on. The one I used the cleaner on, did come out a little brighter then the one behind it. They still look pretty nice with fresh varnish. I think altogether, I have 2-3 coats on. The next couple coats will have less mineral spirits and more varnish as I work towards straight varnish for the finishing coats.

Almost Travel Ready

Today I was switching out the tires on the trailer. The owner/manager of the storage lot stopped by to take a look at what I was doing. He looked at the trailer fender all rolled up from the previous tire that had the tread peel off and ruined it. He happened to have an angle grinder and cut off the part of the fender that was rolled onto itself. You can see what the ruined part looked like in this post. As of today, there's still a couple tires I need to switch out that I can do later. The boat/trailer isn't moving just yet.

 

Part of the time I was working at the boat, I was putting the standing rigging that I replaced on the mast. Once everything was back on the mast, I went to the store and got some plastic wrapping. I wrapped up the rigging and lines to the mast then tied the mast higher on the trailer like it was when I bought the boat.

I also cleaned up the last piece of handrail from the top side. I bought some teak cleaner and brightener. I thought it might get the handrail to look better than the other pieces I did so far. It's hard to tell if it was working when the wood was still wet. I used the cleaner then brightener and did fresh water rinse after each part. I thought it was looking good but still hard to tell.

These next pictures show how the handrail looked once it was drying off. Now, it does look a lot better than before. I think tomorrow might be the day I start putting varnish on this piece. I'm thinking I'll be able to notice the difference in the wood once the varnish is applied. So far, it looks pretty good. Overall, everything seems to be working out pretty good. The boat/trailer is closer to getting ready to travel. I've had a few people at work express an interest in going out on the boat once it's in the water.

Clean up day

Today was a busy day.

 

I went to Rhapsody and did some cleaning up. Overall, I spent 4 hours at the boat.

 

I bought a 1000 watt inverter that I connected to the truck battery. I also bought a small 1.5 gallon shop-vac. Together, I cleaned up the inside of the boat.

  

Here's another video cleaning up other areas on the boat.

I decided to take a video of what it was like for someone my size of 6'5" tall to lay down in a quarterberth of a Nor'sea.

Afterwards, I came back to the house and started some work on putting some varnish on another piece of the port handrail. It's a first coat but it still looks pretty good to me. Hopefully, someday, I can get all the exerior wood to look as nice.

More Handrail

It's been quite some time since I've been able to do any work on Rhapsody. This weekend has been very busy doing work around the house. I've been cleaning stuff up and throwing stuff I don't need out.

Today, I made time to clean up the handrails I brought back to the house. I pulled out an electric sander to help a little. Below is a picture of what the old varnish looked like, a bare piece and a piece with a couple coats of varnish. The piece in the middle I did some hand sanding and used the electric sander a little on a couple difficult spots that had turned grey. I'd say it's ready for the first coat or two of varnish. I started, but not finished removing old varnish from the other handrail. It's still going to take some time but it's well on it's way.

So far, I think things are looking pretty good. Once I get these rails back on the boat, I can get a survey and insurance and then a trip to the marina.

Handrail Removal

I decided to do a video this time showing my removal of the handrails.

One of the bolts I could not wedge the nut to loosen and I stripped the head trying to get it out. Now, it looks like I'm going to have to resort to drilling out the bolt or get a small fine tooth saw blade and cut the head off so I can remove the rail.

The rails I did get off are now at the house so I can refinish and prepare them for reattaching to the deck. So far, things seem to be going well. Just need to get that one bolt out so I can get to work on the other handrail.

Considering the bolts are phillips head, I'm now considering the possibility of changing them to a hex head. I wonder if that might make it easier for removal in the future, if it was needed. Either way, as long as things get bedded down good in the first place, it should be good as it is. If I'm going to drill out or cut the one bolt off, I'll need to find a replacement anyway for that one.

Teak handrail work

For the first time in a long time, I have a birthday on a day that I'm NOT working (as in, paid employment). Yep, today I'm 34.

It was a nice day today, and being a weekend, I decided to go do some work on the boat.

I've been looking at the teak handrails for a while and doing a little work to rebed them to prevent additional damage to the interior. I guess you could say that today I had a crazy moment and decided to ruin the nice handrails down below, gut out the plugs and unscrew everything so I could get to the bolts holding down the handrails on the top.

Here is the nicely finished plug down below.

And here's how it looked after I took one of them out.

Everything was going pretty well. Still, it wasn't easy. My hand are hurting from trying to chisle everything out with screw drivers without causing too much damage during the removal.

One of the plugs on top had to be removed in order to stop a nut from spinning with the bolt.

I ended up having to use a painters spatula to wedge it to keep it from moving. At the same time, I was reaching in from below through a port hole to unscrew it.

Here's the handrail sitting in the cockpit.

It'll take some cleaning up to do before I put the handrails back on. These, I can bring back to the house to pull the old varnish off without having to go out to the storage place to work on it at the boat..

Unfortunately, The handrail on the other side was not as cooperative. There were three small handrails down below that I had to chisle out the plugs to get to the screws. Even then, When I worked on the bolts to detach everything, I have one that is spinning freely like the one I mentioned above and three of them are pretty tight and don't want to move and will require a bit more work to get it off. Since I wasn't feeling up to staying at the boat any longer, I thought it best to try again another time, probably next week. All together, I probably spent about 5 hours on all this today. It is not easy work cleaning the plugs out of the handrails.

Another reason I decided to do all this is so I can rebed everything rather than focusing on just where I see damage. This seems to be the first time they will be rebedded in 30 years or so. Then, I have to decide, do I use Butyl tape or Lifecaulk to rebed everything, as this is what I have on hand. Or, as others on the Nor'sea owners group seem to love, Dolphinite, which I also have on hand. I'm not sure of Dolphinite as it seems to have a more fluid consistancy that I expected. I first thought it would be similar to the butyl putty feel to it.

Time to consult the group. Thanks for visiting.