Inside and Out

I have put down the remaining work on a calendar.  Plan the work and Work the plan.  According to this adage, I should be done in August!  Even with that, I will need to continue to work evenings.

The plan for last week day evenings was to sand all of the teak in the cockpit. There were a lot of areas where drips had left their mark.  Besides the varnish had become old and rough throughout.  If you look closely at the teak on the left side of the picture, you can see one of those drips in the upper middle and that is after my first sanding!  The door in the back ground is for comparison to what I started with.

This is the same door midway through sanding.  I had to get pretty aggressive, using 80 grit sandpaper.  I created a real mess in the cockpit and probably inhaled my share of dust, even with a face mask.

Most of the wood is teak veneer plywood, so you have to be fairly careful not to sand through the veneer.  I probably had about 4 small "oops" moments throughout.  Hopefully I am the only one who will know where they are after everything is varnished!

I figure I spent a total of 10 hours sanding and another 2 hours cleaning up.  I washed down the teak with a bleach/water solution and then "showered" it with water.  Ended up hosing down the whole inside.  Now to try and keep it from getting more drips from the window, which have not been sealed yet!

On Saturday, I put the second coat of paint on the boot stripe area.  I am going with a 3" boot stripe, so I masked off the bottom paint/water line and faded the paint upwards.

The top of the boot stripe will be level and I will lay that out prior to painting the remainder of the topsides in Flag Blue.  According to the "Plan", that is scheduled for the week of July 4th.  I have taken that week off of work.

The majority of the boot stripe will do with 3 coats, however areas like this will need at least 4 coats to cover.

With the remaining paint, I added Intergrip non-skid additive and painted the various hatch covers.

All of the existing hatches had an integrated non-skid molded into the fiberglass.  But after filling in holes and wear and tear, it would not match, so I decided to try using the Intergrip right on top, without sanding down the existing non-skid.  This is a close up.

Same hatch cover a couple of feet back.  I decided to add 1:1 ratio of Flattening Agent to the paint to take away the gloss.  Both for contrast with the glossy border as well as to help hide the imperfections in the non-skid area.

I mixed about 8 oz of paint, 8 oz of flattening agent and 2 oz of Interdeck.    Had about 4 oz left over.

This is one of the new hatches that I made that will cover the stern extension that houses the outboards and gas tank.











Look Ahead.

This next week, I hope to lay paint down in the cabin, while things are clean and tidy.  This will prep the cabin for starting to lay out the wiring and plumbing.

Rub Rail Varnish Continued

After applying my first coat of varnish on the teak rub rail weekend before last, I was able to apply 4 more coats, before I ran out of varnish...More ordered!

Here is a shot after my last coat.  I plan on maybe one more coat of the same varnish and then finish it off with the high gloss varnish final coat.

Another shot later in the day, when the sun was really shining on it!

On Saturday, I started painting the boot stripe, but only got one coat on.  Looks like it will take 1-2 more coats.    I will do that this coming weekend.

After applying the first coat in the morning, I decided to tackle removing the oxidation from the bottom of the hull below the cockpit/salon area.

Photo of the tools of the trade.

This is a shot after my first area.  You can still see the oxidation in the lower portion as comparison.












After work hours this week will be dedicated to sanding the teak cabinetry inside the cabin.  Started today, using my orbital sander.  I will take pictures this week and post next time.  All of my teak plywood and molding is now in, so I can start to pull the inside of the cabin together in the next few weeks.

A reminder if you are going to paint with Interlux Perfection outside, to cover up your work if an overnite dew is expected.  I did a little touch up in the cockpit extra paint left over from my boot stripe, and didn't heed my on advice.  The area that I touched up is flat instead of glossy.

Let the Varnish Begin

I dedicated this weekend to varnishing the teak rub rails.  As always, more work than I planned!  During the week I started on locating the route for my electrical wiring.  This entailed drilling holes and other slots to accommodate the wiring.  The more I get into it, the more I realize that I want to do all the painting and such on the inside before I start to actually lay out the wire.

I started Saturday morning with removing the tape on the inside of the  rub rail that was used to protect it from painting the deck.  UGHH.. the exposed wood below the tape absorbed the paint up behind the tape.  Took half the day just to sand the paint off.  After I while I quit being so meticulous and just left some of the paint..  I plan on caulking between the deck and the rub rail, so hopefully it will hide some of it.   Used 220 grit to finish off the sanding.

Picking my battles at this point!

Saturday night I wiped on some Barkeepers Friend, which contains Oxalic acid, to bleach the wood a bit.

This morning, I wiped the rub rail with some denatured alcohol to combat the oil in the teak.  Then applied my first coat of Epifanes varnish.

I cut the first coat with 25% mineral spirits to thin out the varnish so that it would absorb in the wood better.  This is a shot after a few minutes.  You can see that it is splotchy, which is to be expected.  Showing areas where the varnish was absorbed by the wood.

I am using Epifanes Wood Finish Gloss, which is formulated so that sanding is not required between coats. My goal is to apply 1 coat every day for the next 5 days. (or more).  I will then use Epifanes Clear Gloss Finish for the final coat.

Just a shot to show the before.

and after first coat of varnish.

Deck Painting Winding Down

I feel good about this last week, but it reminds me how slowly things can go.  I completed my 2nd coat of paint on the entire deck including all of the hatches.  I will likely do one more coat on most of the deck and above.  Then it is on to the topsides.  I even did a light sanding of the exterior portion of the hulls yesterday.

In my previous post, I had a couple of pictures of the aluminum frames after being painted.  I then moved on to applying a bead of Dow 795 silicon sealant around the windows.  This is the shot after taping off the area to achieve a nice 45 degree beveled edge on the sealant.

All this taping takes considerable amount of time, but the results are worth it.

Below is a picture of the finished product.  

Today was a short day, so I decided to start on the helm station.  It is always a trying time, making holes anywhere on a boat, but especially after all of the time I put into this helm station.

The tape is to protect the surrounding area from the marks jigsaws to tend to leave behind.

Here goes!

Cut made, and Morse control is hooked up to the outboard control cables.  All seems to function property.  More instruments and gauges later.

















That is all for now!

4000 Views and Goodbye Gray

This week, my blog surpassed 4000 views.  Most likely the same 10 or so people! LOL.   In the midst of painting.

Here I am prepping the deck for a coat of prime-kote primer.  I sure have gone through a lot of this blue painter's tape on this project.

All hardware has been removed, except for the jib traveler.  I could not get any of the screws/bolts to budge, so I just taped it off and painted around it.

Alluding to the title of this post, all the gray has been painted over.  OK, the gray in the anchor locker is still there, but that will get a couple of coats of bilge paint when I get around to it.  It seems that most Iroquois were painted an offsetting color, so I am pretty sure the gray was original.  Oh well, not really my style.

If you recall, I deliberated between removing the existing window frames to  have them powder coated black to match the new windows or leave them and paint them insitu.

Well the picture answers the question.  The frames were not budging much, so I decided to leave them.  They are adhered pretty, well, so I don't think it is the route of any leaking.

Masking the frame was quite a tedious task.  I bet it took about 3 hours total, if not more!

Here is a shot after painting a self etching primer on the aluminum frame.  I ended putting 2 coats.

Same shot, just a close up.

After a couple of coats of paint.  If you look closely you can see the masking coming away.  I am not sure if it is the "purple" painters tape (not 3M) that I bought at Home Depot or what, but the tape was not sticking with the wind beating at the brown paper.  Unfortunately this lead to quite a bit of overspray that I did not notice until I removed the masking.  It all came off with a bit of paint reducer.  So much for all that tedious work!

And the finished product.  I want to put a tint on the window at some point.

And from the side.  This angle kind of shows the black out effect I am going for.  I ended up applying 2-3 coats of black satin, but I did not think that it matched the new windows, which had a bit more gloss to it. So I went and bought a semi gloss black and applied 3 more coats.  Hopefully it will hold up for a while!

Didn't forget the screws.  I guess I could have gone out an bought some new black ones, but what the heck, Reuse, Recycle.  Laid the screws in a piece of Styrofoam and applied etching primer and a few coats of paint.

So now that my window frames are all black, I thought about how the chrome port holes would look.  The exterior frames were tarnished and would need re-chroming, so I decided to go ahead and paint them.  If I don't like it, I was still going to get them re-chromed.  We'll see.












For the rest of the week, I will continue with laying down the first of 3 coats of Interlux on the deck and cockpit.  In the coming weeks, the rest of the boat above the rub rail, will likely get one more coat of Interlux to meld everything together and finally, a non-skid will be applied.

I ordered some Dow 795 sealant for the old windows.  Hopefully I can get to that this week.

Boat Arch

My stainless steel boat arch was delivered today.  I am very happy with the work.  The cost.... well that is another thing!  Remember, B.O.A.T.  If you own a boat, you know what it stands for!

The main reason for the arch is to remove clutter from the cabin.

Here is a shot from aft.  The main sheet traveler will be placed on top of the arch.

I originally was going to put my radar scanner on top, but I wanted the top of the arch to go under the boom.

I incorporated a bench seat to move people out of the cockpit area and provide more seating.

I will likely use some plastic lumber in a teak color.  Probably slats similar to a park bench look.

I really like the forward slant of the arch.  I ended up going with 1.75" diameter tube.  Sturdy enough to add davits later, if I so choose.

It also provides a mass that I think balances out the mass of the raised cabin area.

You may have noticed in the previous picture that I got around to putting a primer coat in the cockpit area.  Prior to that, I added some vinylester resin to the channel that surrounds the cockpit floor.

The copper scupper holes are proud of the surrounding area by about 1/8".  This leaves standing water and debris.  So I decided to lay the resin in order to limit the amount of standing water.

This week I also placed an order for some teak veneer plywood and teak molding so I can make more progress on the interior.  What did I say about B.O.A.T.?  Oh well, at least I made it down to the West Marine store that is closing and got 75% off on some 8/2 AWG wire.  Bought 50 feet.  30 feet to run to the electric toilet in the head and 20 feet to run to the refrigerator in the galley.  I think I paid $.75 a foot.  I also bought 30 feet of 2 AWG for about $1.25 a foot.  Unfortunately all they had was red.  I bought that to run to the forward deck for a future windlass.

Painting and Window (Port) Install

Friday morning I spent a few hours sanding in preparation for my first coat of paint on the lower cabin area.  I also started installing the windows on the raised cabin roof.  Around 10:30 I pulled myself away from the project to take my Ericson out for a sail.  Very nice day, 5-6 knots going and coming back.

Laid one coat of the Snow White paint, since I have half a gallon of it.  The next two coats will be Oyster White.

I purchased a badger hair brush to tip the paint.  It came out better than my first attempt at roll/tip, but the jury is still out as to if it is better than roll/roll method.  I did not use flattening agent with this coat.  I am pretty sure I am going to flatten the remaining coats.

I had some paint left over, so I decided to paint the storage lids.

I did not use a primer, because I did not want to waste the paint, which only has a pot live of 4 hours.  It actually covered the gray paint pretty good.  Still need to fill in the defects and sand prior to the next coat.

              New window installed.

Shot of butyl tape oozing out.  Once I cut it back, I will tape off and apply some black Dow 795 sealant for a nice finish.

Started installing foam backed vinyl "headliner".  The roof will get a PVC wainscot.

The liner is temporarily held in place with 3M spray adhesive.

At some point, I will install teak molding.  This is a piece from the previous headliner.   I need to buy some more and varnish it.  Need to make a trip to the lumber yard soon!

I think I will wait and varnish the new molding at the same time I decide to varnish the teak rub rail and then install it.

With daylight savings time, I have been trying to do more after I get home from work.  I decided to paint the 2 forward storage lockers with bilge paint.  This is after 2 coats.  The plywood floors need one more coat.  I also wanted to get this done before I start wiring the navigation lights that will go on the hull.

Speaking of wiring, here is a small sampling of my wiring collection.  I have been buying wire at various boat rummage sales over the last year.  The West Marin store in Huntington Beach is going out of business, so I have been getting the bulk of the wire there.  The wire is now 75% off.  Just need to buy some heavy gauge wire for the head and fridge.  I may even buy some for a future windlass.  Because of the long run from the battery bank to the windlass, I will likely need some 2 AWG, which can be quite expensive.  May as well buy it now and install while the boat is accessible.

I have already run the 2 AWG from the battery area, through the chase and to the helm area.








Here is the electrical schematic I came up with.  I already bought the different color wire to match the colors on the schematic.

That's all for now!