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Tuesday, July 23, 2013



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!






3 comments:

The Great and Powerful Oz said...

Have you considered making a foam core replacement for that rudder? There are experts out there who can tell you how to make on the is way stronger and probably lighter. Won't rot either.

UseDaGreyMatter said...

Yeah, I seriously thought about it. After all this sanding I'm coming to the conclusion this rudder is practice for the deck plate. Can you say BACKING PLATES! YIPES!

UseDaGreyMatter said...

By way of a PS, or now I'm going to use the rudder bottom that came with boat but the foam idea is on my mind for a new rudder bottom which will be needed