Winter slow down

No, I haven't gone anywhere. This time of year, things slow down and like most people, it's just a matter of staying warm. In the meantime, there are winter projects and project planning.

I've sold the Garmin 546s. Didn't take long for that to sell. I intend to upgrade to a nicer chartplotter and integrated radar.

I've been looking over where and how I'm going to mount the Pronautic charger.

Still working (slowly) on building a new battery box that will hold two Group 31's.

Varnishing the rudder cheeks and adding a few coats to the tiller.

And, I just made a few orders for supplies on other smaller projects that I'm waiting for a couple more things to come in but here's a picture to show what I have so far. Just not going to talk about what the projects are just yet, but I have some wires, a strap and hardware. :-)

Checked on the boat today. I thought I left something I needed on the boat, then realized what I was looking for was in the truck. I saw the pink anti-freeze was frozen in the water filter for the engine. From what I've seen, it does freeze, just doesn't expand (maybe when it gets even colder?). Decided to look in the bilge and saw it's frozen too. I really need to dry that out as soon as it warms up again. I'll keep a close watch on everything as this winter continues.

Not much but that's the latest I'm up to. Hopefully soon, I'll find out where I'll be moving too for work and will then have to sort out where the boat is going to be stored at later.

Stay warm out there!

Some Bling

Bunch of projects to report here. This has been on going since my last post.

I stripped down the old varnish on the rudder cheeks. The finish that was used before was worn and the wood itself is cracking but overall, not so bad that they need replaced. These are large pieces of wood, I think mahogany that's 3/4" thick. Taking the old varnish off, they showed some nice looking wood underneath. They soaked up some thinned Epifanes varnish when I mixed 50% mineral spirits so they'll take quite a few coats to really start looking good.

 

 

Sanded down

First coat of varnish, thinned 50%

First coat on one side of chainplate spacers



I was chatting with others online about my chainplate replacement and there was a mention of Collinite Metal Wax as being a good metal polish. I took them up on that suggestion. I don't have a bench grinder with a buffing pad as another Nor'sea owner, Greg, did so I wanted to find an alternative. I found at Lowes hardware store an attachment for the drill that accepts sockets. This allowed me to spin the bolts quickly that got them to polish up really nice.

Here's a video showing how the bolts were getting polished.



 

New chainplates made of 316 stainless arrived. They are nicely polished. Looking forward to getting them on the boat once the paint work is finished. These together with the polished bolts will look pretty sharp on the boat.

 

 

Aside from replacing the chainplates, the other big project I'm doing while the old one's are off is to repaint the blue stripe by the toe rail a different color. On a couple nice days, 13 and 14 Sep, I painted some primer to get it ready for the top coat. I put a coat of primer on and came back the next day to sand smooth and paint a second coat. The second day was sunny and it was drying pretty quickly. Next, will be having to sand the second coat smooth and put on the top coat of Burgundy Pettit EasyPoxy.



 

First coat of burgundy

 27 Sep, I sanded down the first coat of burgundy on the port side. I sanded the primer on the starboard side and painted the first coat of burgundy. I've thinned the paint pretty good but still getting brush marks. It's likely to be because it's been warm out and very windy. I may try adding a little more thinner but not sure how that would work. I'm expecting to paint several coats to at least get an even color.

 

Sanded first coat

Second coat on port side

 

A lot of work has been done but still much more to do. I've been working once a week in the weekend. Not enough but I'll take what I can. All this work will get the boat looking better than it has in a very long time. This boat will be ready for another 30+ years soon enough.

Deck Vent Work Finallized

A trip to the boat turned out to be a good day. I finished some work on the vent. I took the tape I had around the vent off and cleaned up a bit of the bedding that had squeezed out. I used some wood plugs and filled the screw holes. Two of the holes were deep enough I was able to put them in easy enough and two others needed to be cut down. I put a couple coats of varnish on it too. Toward the end of the day, it had rained so the water beaded up nicely. I plan to apply more coats but this is a good start to protect the wood.

 

 

 

 Most of the exterior wood has turned grey. There's still some old varnish still flaking off. Some time, I'd like to finish the rest of the exterior wood. I had a bottle of Teak Cleaner so I wanted to see how it would work on the grey wood. I started off with a test spot but then spread over most of the port side. I like that it turned out well. It might work well in getting it refinished.

 

Wet from rinsing with fresh water

 

 

Transition between grey and cleaned teak

 I want to get the Airhead ready to use. Then I can go for a weekend sail and stay anchored out. I took one of the two coir bricks and added water while in a 5 gallon bucket. I broke it apart as it absorbed the water. The brick ended up expanding to fill half of the 5gal bucket. I didn't put any of it in the toilet but left it so it will be ready to go. Now, the only thing I really need to do is to wire up the fan for ventilation and it's ready to go. I might do something for a temporary setup until I can set it up better but I'll have to see what I'm able to find.

 

 

At one point, I was adding the second coat of varnish around the vent. One of my dock neighbors who was around decided to check out how everything looked and got to talking. I set down the cup of varnish and next thing I knew, I saw it had spilled over onto the deck. Not too crazy about it so now I need to find a way to get it off. I've already been suggested to try a heat gun and/or acetone or some other solvent. Hopefully I can get it cleaned up and looking nice again soon.

 

Just goes to show you not everything turns out great.

 

Apparently the neighbor makes suggestions saying certain things are not good for when I sell the boat. He said having a composting head would make it hard to sell. Today, he saw a small amount of varnish and run off of the vent base and said it would make it hard to sell the boat.

And NO I'm NOT selling my boat.

Tiller Time

Here's some of the work I've been doing on my tiller I removed from the boat. First to show how it looked before I removed it showing its condition since I bought the boat.

I removed a couple small dowel rods that were on the handle end. The split was pretty good that went through the handle and down about 6 inches.

 

I used some small screwdrivers to wedge into the end of the tiller.

I got some low density filler and mixed it into some epoxy. I took a ziploc sandwich bag, cut a small part of a corner. With the ziploc, put some of the thickened epoxy mix into the bag and used it to inject into the split. Much like how cake decorators use the icing bags.

I was able to get the epoxy down into the crack and filled the holes the dowel rods were in. I also used some of the epoxy for filling in around a couple bungs (I found they're not being used to cover screws, at least the one on the very end). Removed the screw drivers causing the epoxy to ooze out where I used a clamp to compress it until it cured.

Sanded everything down smooth. At one point, I was using 80 grit on the top since that was in the worst condition. I then used 100 and 220 grit. There is still a few dark parts that show up with the varnish but I didn't want to take too much material off. I think it just adds to its character.

While trying to figure out how I was going to varnish, I decided to bend a hanger around a shelf in a closet and hung the tiller on it with screw drivers in the mounting hole. I used a trash bag under it in the case of drips. The space between the shelf and the tiller was very close but I made sure there was no contact.

 

The first coat, I mixed mineral spirits with 25% varnish. I wanted to make sure it soaked into the wood.

Second coat, I did while the first was still tacky (over night). I waited for the proper drying time of 24hrs, went outside to sand and for the 3rd and 4th coats, about 50/50 mix.

I did the 5th coat (shown below) with 50/50 again and for the next few coats, I will be going up to about 75/25 that, I think, will fill in what's left of the grain that's still showing and smooth out even more.

I like how it is coming out and looking forward to getting it back on the boat when it warms up. I think the Epifanes finish looks a lot better than the previous finish. For a 32yr old piece of wood, it's turning out very nicely. I still need to get a bolt to replace the bronze one I broke off. I found some 6" stainless bolts that should be long enough at Jamestown Distributors with hex heads I think might work out..

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.