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.

New Hole in the Boat

Previously, I was working on getting a block of wood to the curved shape of the cabin top. I cut away much of the material that I didn't need. I tried sanding it but the paper was loose so it didn't work out well so I got another sheet of 60 grit and taped it down to keep it from moving. This worked out well and took quite a bit of material off that smoothed it out.

 

 

Today was a very busy and productive day. I got a lot more done than I thought I would. I originally thought I would only be able to install the vent on the cabin top. It was a bit nerve racking since I was about to drill a new hole in the boat. To get an idea of placement, I placed the fan housing from the Airhead toilet on the ceiling to see how much bend there was in the hose.

 

I used a 5/16 bit to drill out the four corners to mount the wood block, but not all the way through. This allowed the  #8 screws I got to be countersunk below the surface. I used a smaller bit to drill through the rest of it, then the pilot holes into the cabin top.

I taped around where the block was being mounted. I also used tape around the block. I used Dolfinite bedding compound to bed the block onto the deck. Dolfinite has been recommended by other Nor'sea owners numerous times so I thought I would give it a try this time. A dock neighbor suggested I use 5200 or 4200 and said he never heard of Dolfinite. I wasn't about to go buy another type of sealant.

 

 

After using the Dolfinite, I smoothed it out on the edges and removed the tape. I wonder if I should have waited for it to setup before removing the tape but it seemed to work out well. I then used a 3 inch hole saw to cut out the center of the block. Turns out the cabin top is about 1 1/2" thick.

Nice skylight

I mixed up some epoxy. I used it to coat the interior of the cutout of the deck only, not the wood block. I only used it for a single coating.

The vent I got is a Vetus Mushroom vent. I took the base and drilled pilot holes for the screws I got at the nearby shop.

I also used Dolfinite on this too. I put some of it in a ziplock bag and cut the corner out of it to spread it out a little at a time without putting too much on. After placing the vent base back on, I decided to leave the tape in place this time. I also put the top piece of the vent in place and the knob that is installed from underneath.

I put the fan housing over the hole that was drilled out. The surface was flat enough, I didn't need to put anything else over the hole to mount the housing. I also ran the vent hose like the second picture at the top and it reached where it needed to on the head.

I mounted the head and the liquid tank onto the base. There wasn't much clearance for the mixing handle so I may cut that short for it to do complete turns.

There's only a few other things that need to be done to complete the install. I need to connect the wires for the fan that's mounted in the housing, install plugs on the wood block to seal the screw heads, connect the vent hose to the head and then it's pretty much ready to use.

Filter Cleaning

Today was a pretty productive day. I mainly spent time cleaning the two Racor 500FG fuel filters.

First, I want to show my idea of another project, a deck mounted vent for a new head.

I ordered a piece of teak from Buck Woodcraft that was 2" x 5" x 12". The piece I got was pretty nice too.

I cut it down to a 5" square that I will shape to the curve of the deck. I also plan to install a Vetus Mushroom vent to it. Others have mentioned I should use a dorade box, but this way I'm going will be lower profile and I think better suited for my boat. I mainly placed the block to show size and placement.

The main project was to clean the fuel filters. I found some nice instructions for the Racor fuel filters from a guy known on boating forums as Maine Sail. What was nice is the picture showing the gaskets and what they go to. I guess the seal kit was supposed to come with it but the two kits I got didn't have it. I printed the picture and placed the gaskets over it to make sure I had everything ready.

I had some junk sitting at the bottom of the port side filter. Once I had the bowl and housing apart, cleaning it wasn't too bad except for a few tight spaces near the plugs at the bottom of the bowl.

Port side filter

Everything for the starboard side filter went well too. It just had a lot more debris sitting in the bowl. The worst thing was the fuel ended up being black when it was drained as the debris was breaking up and dropping into the jar too. The fuel didn't look too bad when it was sitting in the bowl, just looked worse when it was drained.

Starboard side filter

Black fuel

It just shows the importance of regular maintenance or servicing something when it needs it. I think debris like this could have made its way into the engine causing it to stall. Definitely not a good thing if the engine is needed in a hurry. Since getting the 3gal tank, the engine has seemed to run better with cleaner fuel, so hopefully cleaner filters will help too to keep it running.

The last thing I did for the day was to mix up some epoxy with some low density filler to cover the hole left over from the old holding tank vent. I put enough on it so I can sand it down flush with the surrounding surface. Sometime in the future, I'm looking at repainting the blue stripe so this little patch will then be covered up.