Fore Deck Repairs

I patched the three holes in the fore deck last weekend and I learned a few things too!

1. Grinding the bottom surface, upside down in the bow is hard.

2. Only one tool will properly grind fiberglass when upside down: a grinder.

3. Make measurements and mark the limits of the planned grind beforehand so that the cloth patches can be premade thus saving time and daylight.

4. Mixing epoxy and performing the actual patching in the dark is not the preferred method.

5. Plan ahead. Run to the store to buy supplies at night or prior to starting the work, not during the work.

6. Make cardboard templates to mark and cut common sized, round cloth that will be used over and over.

7. Use fast hardener for tack coats of epoxy if you have it. 

8. Learn from mistakes!

OK! I think that anyone who reads the above can imagine how it all went down. The patches are good and solid but it just took a very long time. So, without getting in to a drawn out, embarrassing narrative I will post some pictures in the hope of saving face!

Three holes ground/beveled. Same on the under side. By the way, the core is all good on the fore deck including around these holes. By my toe you can see where the cleats were mounted over the bulkhead below. The core is slightly compressed in that area but not rotten.

Earlier in the week I received this pair of awesome scissors in the mail. What a difference they make when cutting fiberglass cloth. Money well spent.

I used all kinds of things around the house to mark the circular cloth plugs for cutting. Plastic paint pots, an epoxy filler canister, a dixie cup, the bottom piece of a terracotta garlic roaster and this bottle of chimichurri...

Cutting these out took a lot longer than it should have...

because I was day dreaming and taking pictures of trees with my new camera :)

It is at this point that I had to go buy sand to make these sand bags. In Florida sand is white and all one has to do to get it is dig a hole. The sand that I bought is labeled "play sand", is better than the clay one would dig up here in Kentucky and is pinkish! The bags I made are double bagged and are sealed with Gorilla Tape and staples. I am so proud of them!

Running out of light here. I applied a tack coat of epoxy before placing these ...

and this one. I did not use fast hardener which I have. Big mistake!

It got dark waiting for the underside patches to stiffen up enough to set the topside patches. The forecast for the following day was rain so I needed to get it did. But here I sit taking pictures, waiting for the slow hardener to harden slowly. That is my back porch boat yard glowing behind the building center pic.

At this point I put the camera away and gathered everything I needed on the bow to finish this task in the dark. It was after midnight when I was done and everything put away again. The headlight meant for night time ocean sailing really came in handy for this land locked, frenzied, nocturnal epoxy slingin!

I was sore the next morning. Anyone who has done this kind of work knows what is involved, Carrying stuff up, forward, back, down blah blah blah....

The rain passed just north of where I am, lasted all day and caused flooding conditions. I was lucky. Here are the fruits of my labor from the night before:

My beautiful sand bags over the patches...

and the patches themselves!

No dry cloth for a change! Actually I used a little too much epoxy and it seeped around the edges. No problem though, I am going to grind/sand the gelcoat anti-skid pattern off. I could have used a fourth layer of cloth on the two holes right side. They are very solid though.

I had envisioned getting twice or three times the amount of work done over the weekend than I actually did. I will take what did get done and try to plan better so that I am not left waiting or wasting precious time in the future. I have three full days off this weekend but my expectations are to just do a good job, not a fast job.

Fair winds..._/)

Playing with boogers! Part One

BOOGERS! If you are going to follow my blog, you have to have a strong stomach and the attention span of a terracotta Chinese warrior! My posts are few and sometimes they contain references to things that we all live with but never mention.

Last weekend was not the leap in productivity that I had suggested it would be. Friday was spent goofing off on the interwebs ordering expensive hardware and checking out other peoples boat restoration blogs. Saturday was my birthday. Sunday was a day spent in the shower washing off the shame and regret left over from Saturday. In other words, I took the weekend off from boat work!

Feeling totally guilty, I hit it hard beginning Monday by trying to clean the deadlight frames. Through some experimentation I found that relying solely on the Magic Goo to remove the silicone was not the way to go. Blindly spreading the goo on a frame makes a huge mess but it also does something else more insidious. Where the silicone is thin, the goo makes the silicone very hard to remove. Where the silicone is thick, the goo renders it so soft that it can be scraped with an epoxy stirrer. Very strange behavior.

So, after two frames of this, I resorted to "rolling" the thin silicone off with my thumbs and leaving the thick, tough silicone for the goo. Rolling industrial silicone boogers off of aluminum boat window frames on which they have been adhered for forty plus years is hard work. After repeating this procedure on the remaining six small frames, over the next few days, I can claim the toughest thumb calluses and strongest grip ever earned in such a short time! Cred goes out to "hot soapy water" and "3M pads"! Without them I could not have done it!

Check it out. Eight clean small frames!

Now the BIG frames! I am ready. Bigger silicone boogers = bigger rewards!

If you read this far, I commend you. Hopefully you will not have to endure any more sophomoric blog posts until you read  "Playing with boogers! Part Two"!

This weekend: The deck repairs I promised myself last weekend.

Magic Goo!

This past week I received something in the mail that might have been sent from heaven! It is called Mckanica Silicone Remover and it will be worth its weight in gold if it works as advertised.

I did a test on a small area of one of the frames. You might be able to see an area of silicone on the right that is darker than the rest. That is my test area where I applied some of the magic goo.

I let it sit overnight although the directions say 2 to 3 hours. Hey, the Heat game was on, ok? This morning I checked it and IT WORKED! The silicone from hell peeled right off like it was not supposed to be there, which in my mind, it wasnt. You can see the now clean area on the right.

Hallelujah! Although I will have to sit and dab it on with a small brush or something, it sure beats the alternative. The alternative is destructive grinding with an abrasive and quite honestly that might not even do the trick.

In other news, I removed the old 1" cockpit drains. Once again, the bolts were ridiculously longer than they needed to be. They could have used a 1" long bolt but noooooo they used 2-1/2" long. They were bronze for a change but heavily corroded. Since I am working alone and my patience is thin, I backed the nuts off (small visegrips tied to a string on the nut and me in the cockpit with a screw driver) far enough to bend and break the bolts. Not text book procedure but it is my boat!

I will be replacing them with these babies.

Those are 2" Marelon cockpit drains. The strainers are 4" nickel floor drains. Installing these will require some ingenuity but I think I have a good method in mind. Something that was suggested by an old pro in one of the boat forums I frequent. More on that later.

This weekend I begin re coring the decks and also some hole repairs. The weather forecast is perfect, I have three full days and plenty of beer so lets see how far I can get!

Deadlight Struggle

The past few days has been rainy and frustrating. I did manage to get a little more demolition in though! Nothing can stop me from being destructive.

Last week I removed the Goiot hatch lid over the saloon and sent it off to Select Plastics to have a new lens and new gasket installed. So now it is time to remove the base and the teak ring. While I am at it, I decided to remove the deadlights too. After all, how hard could it be!

Base removed. Sealant is chalky.

Teak ring. This is going to be tough to get off. Save for later! :P

There was no way for water to escape this box....

Feeling froggy, I attacked the deadlights. This is going to be easy, just remove the bolts and the frames and lens will simply fall in my lap!

Bolts out port side...

and in the bow....

starboard bow....


















and finally starboard saloon.

I was certain this was going to be easy. Boy was I in for a big surprise. These deadlights are, or were, held in not by bolts but rather by the super duper silicone from hell that sealed them. I had no idea...

After messing around with a screw driver trying to gently pry the first frame off, it became apparent that I was going to need a beer...and another tool. I resorted to a metal putty knife which worked better once I found a point of weakness between the frame and the cabinside. Within seconds I knew this was going to much harder than I ever thought it would be.

First frame off after 45 minutes of CHISELING!

Close up of the silicone...

Three frames off in two hours. There has to be a better way!

By now the poor putty knife that I was using to chisel with gave up the ghost. I am glad because when I bought two new ones and used one I found something out. It is much easier if the tool is sharp! Duh...

So the next day I went back at it. It was still difficult to remove these things but mostly because I was trying to be very careful not to bend the frames. The exterior frames on the starboard side were much easier than the rest due to the fact they were exposed to direct sunlight and the silicone was softer. They were the last ones that I did and by then I needed a little break like that.

16 frames, 8 lens and 9 beers later...

Look Ma! No windows!

and of course within an hour it starts to rain....

Little did I know then but my phone was still in the boat. I only realized it after the deluge was coming down by the bucket.

I ordered two tubes of silicone caulk remover gel to get the crap off of the frames. I hope and pray it works! Stay tuned!

Tale of four holes...

Continuing to play blog catch up!

So, with nearly all of the hardware off of the boat, it is time to actually fix something. I decided to begin with what I consider my most obnoxious source of aggravation;  the ice box lid in the cockpit. I have come very close to stepping through it more than once. The wood is rotten and it poses a serious safety hazard. It has to go!


The ice box lid is the wooden rectangle on the left. Since I will be working right there, I might as well cut out the compass cuddy thing in the center too! And why not fix the AC receptacle hole next to it? What about the old gauge hole on the right? I am going to dive in head first and fix all four holes!

I started on the inside by cutting out the ice box lid support ring thingamajig that hung down about 2 inches. It took up a lot of valuable space inside and was good for nothing. It is gone! I used a multi-tool with a plunge cut blade. This took only one beer to complete.

The now removed ice box lid and it's support ring. Looks better sitting there defeated than it did lounging around in the boat being a total slacker.

Holy crap! The hole is huge now! There is no way that I can span that gap with core and cloth with so little deck to tie in to fore and aft. I am going to need a good plan in order to fix that.

Next was cutting out the compass cuddy. You can see here that it is done. This took two beers and was a bear to cut through.

Take that compass cuddy!

They make a nice couple dont you think?

Another view. What an odd shaped hole and right where I need the deck to be super strong. This is right in front of the companionway and I will be stepping there dozens of times per day.

Next up was to grind and bevel the surfaces inside. Done.

And do the same outside. Remind me to take everything out of the boat, like my tools and stuff, before grinding. It took an hour to vacuum the dust that covered literally everything inside the boat.

I went back and grinded some more on these after this shot was taken.

I decided that the ice box hole needed something solid instead of core. So I cut a 13" x 17" piece of 1/4" G10 to use as a plug.

Here it is. I beveled the bottom edges and scuffed up the surface on both sides.

Test fit. It is going to work but I dont like how high it sits.

So I cut out a 1/8" deep slot or lip around the edge using a dremel with a router bit. This was a major pain in the ass and took 3 beers to complete.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I bonded 3/8" core to the bottom of the plug. Much easier to do now than later, upside down.

Now, I know what you are thinking. "Ewwww he lives on a ranch" right?

Here is the ranch. The back patio of my apartment. :)

The pvc/tarp covering is an engineering marvel!

The ice box plug and the cuddy lid epoxied in place. I reused the cuddy lid because it is already shaped correctly and I felt that this repair needed extra strength. I also bonded 3/8" core to the bottom of it just like the ice box plug.

3 layers of 1708 over each hole. Moving fast now! I forgot to coat them with neat epoxy after they tacked up. The next morning I had to wash them to remove the wax before coating with neat and then fairing.

I also added another layer of 1708 in this depression as you may or may not be able to see here.

And all faired out! This is two coats. 11 West Systems "pumps" and 22 heaping tablespoons full of fairing filler. Mixing fairing putty is not the most fun thing in the world, trust me on that.

I also layed one layer of 1708 on the bottom of the ice box plug. Here it is being held up there with a piece of luan under 1" foam covered with plastic. You might be able to see some fairing over the lower part of the cuddy hole too.

There are some dry spots on the left where the 1708 didnt stick to the deck. I am going to have to grind it off and fix it up later when I start on the interior.

Well, thats it! I am kinda caught up with updates. It feels nice to be current after such a long hiatus. As you can see I have been busy working on the boat and have not abandoned my project or my dream!

I am on vacation this week and will be working on the boat. I hope to make some real progress on the decks when it is not raining and sanding/grinding on the interior when it is raining. It is raining right now so I better get busy, adios!

Not so fast Sole Man!

Has it really been almost two months since I last posted? Yes. Am I still removing the sole next? No. I am putting that on hold in lieu of repairing something else that has come to my attention. The decks! Hey, I was raised by women so I have no qualms with changing my mind regularly!

Actually, I came home from work one day and wished to do something simple yet productive. So, I removed the two fuel fills on the starboard deck. I was surprised how wet they both were and how rotten the core was on the older, original one.

Not good. This made me rethink the direction I need to go AGAIN, I know!













I then made it my mission to remove all of the hardware from the decks so that I can assess their shape. This took a looooong time. It seemed to rain every weekend during this period too, as is expected when I have something I really want to do. The rain really was not as bad as something else even more insidious. Very long, overly long, needlessly long and rusty bolts holding everything in place. Also, I am doing this without help so I had to be fairly crafty with small vise grips. In the end, I only had to cut three bolts and those were all upper chain plate bolts that I could not reach both sides of the bulkhead and were slotted.

Fore deck and cabin top with hardware removed.

Stern. Notice the packing tape over the holes. I removed the old caulk, scuffed up the surface and cleaned with acetone before placing the tape.

Starboard cockpit.

Port cockpit.

Starboard.

Port.

Hmmm....
That ice box lid....
And that compass cuddy.....
And the old gauges hole....









I am now only about three weeks behind with the blog and at a milestone in my boat project. It is now that I will move from demolition and destroying the boat to actually repairing it! I will start by "fixing" the ice box hole, the compass cuddy and the hole where the engine gauges used to be.

Anyone need dozens of 2", 3" #10 and 1/4" bolts? I hope to never go through that again...