Baby steps

Little by little....very little. That is the speed at which things are progressing. Oh well.

I worked on the decks on Saturday. The genoa track holes and the chainplate holes on the starboard side were patched.

I want to show how I kept water out of the chainplate holes. After I removed the plates, I placed some butyl tape over the holes and them covered them with packing tape.

These held up for six months and they never leaked. Cleaning these off prior to patching was a little messy but it worked as intended. The tape had to be scraped off and then the area had to be cleaned with mineral spirits.

Here is the genoa track holes after being drilled out, the core dremeled back and cleaned up with acetone.

And the chainplate holes. I dremeled them clean which also made them bigger but there is a good surface in them.

I used the same epoxy-milled glass mixture as before and poured all of the holes full. Once tacked up, I went back and leveled them with thickened epoxy.

I also went around the cabin top and filled some holes that I had ready like these.

That is all I did on the boat itself over the past few days. I did some other stuff though!

The fore hatch captured my attention....mainly because I could work on it in the shade! I needed to send off the lens to have a new one cut to fit so I took it apart.

Guess what? The lens is what was holding the frame together! I was afraid of that. It didnt come apart totally but it was rather loose at all joints. The wood is good but the forty eight year old screws are shot. To save it, I am going to cut four pieces of 1/8" x 1-1/2" leg bronze L bar in 1-1/2" lengths and screw them to the corners. So, my frame will have 1-1/2" bronze corners! With the new lens screwed on and these new bronze fittings, the hatch should be pretty strong. If it doesnt work, I am going to use the old frame to make a mold so that I can make my own frame out of FRP.

Here is how I secured the frame so that I could carry it upstairs to its very own space out of the way! Seems like overkill doesnt it? I didnt want to take the chance of it folding over and breaking the joints at the screws. The clamps are just snug enough to carry it.

And I made some "corks" for lining up and recording the shaft alignment using the old shaft log.

The little cork is for the old shaft log and the bigger one is for the hole in the deadwood. I will reinstall the old log, run a string through the cork, install it as pictured above and then run the string through the boat to a board clamped in the door at the forward bulkhead. I will then line the string up perfectly at the center of the old log and mark the string position on the board in the door. The board needs to be marked where it meets the bulkhead too. This will give me the alignment of the old engine and shaft which I will need when I build new engine beds for the new Beta 16 that sits in my dining room.

And now it is time for a rant! Why do retailers put stickers that do not come off easily all over there wares? Look at this:

That box is wrapped in a nice plastic covering. That sticker is stuck to the surface of the box, not the wrapping!

GRRRRRRRRR! I had six or seven things around the house that had these torn stickers thoughtlessly stuck to them besides the two new boxes. So I gathered them all up and cleaned the obnoxious stickers off of them all with mineral spirits. Is it just me or is stickers on the product and not the wrapping stupid?

I let it bother me for exactly one beer and then I was fine!

Fair winds...._/)