Break Out Another Thousand

Yesterday was about boat shopping. Not the fun stuff mind you but the boring material kind of stuff we all have to do sooner or later if we do our own boat work. This project has turned into a restore. It is as simple as that. The good news is I have every thing needed except the actual paint it self for the bottom job. The primer and  pre-paint wax degrease  scrub is on the way. I decided to go with the Interlux 202 Fiberglass Solvent Wash and the Sea Hawk Barrier Coat Primer. The decision was made for this between reviews and cost. The paint is going to be ordered next week if all goes well.  Absolutely cannot find microfibers locally so I will be ordering that as well. Present plan on paint is Interlux Fiberglass Bottomkote NT. It is about the Benjamin's and reviews for now. 
Found out the next town over has both an attwoods and Harbor Freight. Wish I has known that before I hit lowe's and Home depot.
Oh well, live and learn. It is time to go out side and start playing with all the nifty stuff I got yesterday.
Sail safe  but sail!

 

Rudder Revisited

 I am so glad I bought the angle grinder. It makes fast work of what was a slow job with the oscillating sander and uses a LOT less sanding disks!

Yesterday I finally got around to playing with this new toy. If you have never used and angle  grinder to sand be VERY AWARE you can destroy your piece in a heart beat as it will quite literally tear it up in a tremendously fast hurry. The good news was I wanted to get the cracks tore out and they went really deep as the pictures will show so I had time to get used to it.  The guy who sold me this boat said it was not in that tornado.Maybe it was not. I'm not calling him a lair  but something pretty darned big and this boat collided some where along the line. Part of it is abuse from not having backing plates on it. Seriously as you can see from the pics especially in the chain plate area, the damage is just to obvious from lack of backing plates. The good news is red oak is fairly cheap around here and I'm buying more this month! Just to get started I bought one disk of 36 and one disk of 50. What I got done yesterday in a matter of a few hours used to take all day and a huge pile of sanding disk.
Without further adue here's the pics . I forgot to take some before I started applying the resin but you can still see how deep I had to go to get all of the crack safely out of the way.

 These spots I posted in original post I think.

This next series of shots are from grinding out the  cracks to make sure it is done right.

 

The fiberglass hanging over the edge is not me just being lazy. I am going to have to fill in the gaps which are of a significant size. The cloth is to have something as a back for the thickened epoxy. Yes, I'm actually taking the plunge and using honest to gosh epoxy instead of poly resin for this.  Planning on adding micro fibers to it for strength.

 

 I was planning on having the next part of sanding off the blush and getting another layer of resin on it until I learned that you can destroy a rubber backing plate on a grinder by expecting it to flex to much.It is either that or I hit something and did not realize it until much lager. I was doing a flat part of boat when I did this!

 More "gel coat cracks" At this point based on what I Have seen, I'm NOT trusting it. If it is a crack, it gets sanded and if it is deep enough to be in the fiberglass, it gets sanded down til it is gone  or gouged out and filled in with epoxy and microfibers.

Bow and starboard side of boat.

I got the stress cracks sanded out here.

This is what is left on port side in one area after a bruise was sanded down.

This used to  be the chain plate area.

Curve of boat going from cock pit to top of cabin.

Front deck

Starboard chain plate area. My big feet are intentionally in photo so you can see how far the cracks go.

                                                   Can you say BACKING PLATES!






                                                 My son has a sense of humor.

 

 Sail Safe but sail!

How to make tack cloth, sanding sealer and grit size chart

 A forum page I found

How to Make a Tack Cloth
A tack cloth is one of the best ways to remove dust and grit before applying a finish, to make one soak a cheese cloth in water, wring out the water, soak it in turpentine, wring it out again, drip enough clear varnish on the cheesecloth to make it evenly gummy throughout. Store it in a jar with a lid to keep it from drying out.
Gently wipe away dust and fine particles.

How to Make Sanding Sealer Mix one part wood glue with ten parts water, apply with brush, let dry. This will raise the grain, sand smooth.
 
Save Your Sawdust
Before you start to sand a project empty the dust bag, when the bag is full empty it into a clean mustard or ketchup squeeze bottle. You will now have a supply of sawdust to match the project if you need to do the sawdust and glue fill. To do this squeeze some glue in the crack, then spray a bit of sawdust on it and work it in, repeat if necessary, remove excess.


Grit Size Chart

Retail Defination	Industrial Defination	Uses
Super Fine	600 600 400	Polishing metals, ceramics, stone and plastic usually wet. Not usually used for wood.
Extra Fine	360 320	As above.
Very Fine	280 240 220	Polishing finishes between coats, usually used wet.
Fine	180 150 120	Finishing bare wood.
Medium	100 80 60	First sanding for softwoods, shaping.
Coarse	50 40	Paint removal, rough sanding, shaping.
Very Coarse	36 30 24	Machine sanding bare floors, first cut.
Extra Coarse	20 16 12	Machine sanding floors to remove old coatings.

This last week it has been literally a little bit of this , then a little bit of that, using what ever materials are on hand, until I am out of what ever I am using.  Slowly things are getting done.
The current "big" thing is rudder top revisited. My gut said to take it all the way down to bare fiber glass. It seems it is a good thing I did. Without putting to fine of a point on it, here are some shots of the damaged areas I found under the gel coat. There are a lot of "bruised " areas.

The cracks at first looked like just  gel coat cracks until I got to looking close. Something hit so hard it literally misaligned the fiber glass in a couple of areas. The seller said it was not in the tornado that hit Lake Norman.  I have my thoughts on that.

Got some of the cracks started with the sander. This is a job for an angle grinder.

The boards on the v berth have 2 and 3 Coats of paint on them ands  are ready to screw back into place on 3 out of 4 board. I ran out of paint so an letting the under side of board 4 remain unpainted at least for now.
Have been having a heck of a time deciding what I want to do on the bottom job. Have almost decided to go with the petite and use the 4050 (?) on the bare spots, then the 4700 to prime and a cheap anti-fouling paint to get me in the water for now. I'll worry about it next season after I have all this other stuff done. Money will be not so tight in the boat budget and since it is a trailer sailor, if all else fails I will get a storage unit to do the work in. HINT MUCH cheaper then a marina  and some come with electricity.


Bought an angle grinder. Using sanding disk on my oscillating sandier just takes forever. Using the belt sander on the flat spots is OK. I'm just  not real comfortable with it.  Things should go faster now that I have that. Plan on getting some flap disk and whiz banging thru that part to get the cracks that were supposedly only gel cracks  sanded out and repaired.

Hopefully if Murphy will stay out of it, I have a friend who is going to help me lift her up this next week to get the bottom done. I have a lot of cinder blocks to put her on. Am going to get a 12 ft 4x4 for the front so I can pull the trailer out and drop the keel. Am seriously thinking about putting a stronger axle on her. The axle under her is a tooth pick. I have stuff I want to carry in the boat and with the current axle I'm thinking that is not a good idea.
That's about all for now. I need to get on ebay and see what I can find paint wise. Sail safe but get out there and sail!