Polyester, Woood and Wood Stoves.

 On this page I am  making the pics larger then normal to show detail. I'm not sure if it will make it upload a lot slower and be a pain  for viewers. Please , feedback on this would really be appreciated! Thanks. 


Poly trimming was good practice for using the Dremel I used the EZ lock cutting blade and was very pleasantly surprised how it did and how long it lasted. 




 Resin  I am using for this part of project 

The resin  container says it is water proof. This is their general all purpose house hold use bondo. The little tube is the hardener that came with it. The small bottle is what I bought at Oreillys. The mixing bowl I got from Oreillys. I really like them, They cleanup really well with an acetone soaked rag and if you look a the photo below you can see it has multiple markings for different types of resin. Not bad for less then a buck

It originally has Bondo liquid hardener  written on it but the lettering came off as I used it due to sticky hands from resin.

  Love all the markings. A good all purpose  "disposable" resin bowl.  I did not need the markings using the Bondo but it will sure come in handy when I get to the point of learning how to use 2 part  Epoxy.






 If you remember what I had after the poly cured was a real mess around the edges from having the plastic I used underneath. 

Front

  

Back

               Some close ups of the mess  on V berth tip  board.

 Shots of the trim job in process
  I forgot about taking shots before I started this but you can still get the general idea. I started by just taking it off a little bit at a time with scissors. Probably not a great idea but it got the largest part of it off. .If I had to do it all over again, I  would use the Dremel for this part.

You can see where the resin from both sides overflowed the board.

I now know how to make ice cycles out of resin. 

The back of the first board I did  No plastic under the board..

the resin sealed the edges really well in various places. It seemed a pity to cut it off but it had to happen to fit.

Front

Back

See the void?

Separation of cloth due to plastic moving things around so I could not keep the cloth in place. Next time I think I will use staples to keep cloth in place.

 Time to use the Dremel.

First we take off the biggest part, making sure we leave enough room to not gouge the wood.

                       

                              Close ups of what we have left

 On to the porta pottie board.

Ready for final sanding to pretreat top side.

    Just so  every one  knows I do use safety gear. Glasses and a mask rated for fiberglass.

   
          
           My Blue heeler standing by  to  make sure I get it right. 


  I still have to sand the excess poly off the front as that looks really tacky and has to be done before  I pre treat  for poly on the top sides but one step at a time I'm getting it done.

Looking GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Even that first board I did for the  porta pottie looks decent  on the edges now that it is trimmed up.

 I got busy with starting the job of trimming up the wood for the bulkhead between the bow flotation and the new storage space. Am using the wood that was in the middle section. It is a tad to short across the beam but I can use a board stretcher made out of the other piece to fill in  the gaps.  I HATE throwing perfectly good wood away, Once it is in place and fiber glassed,  it will be fine.  For those if you that do not know what a board stretcher is, it is simply adding extra pieces where it is to short.




See the weave
These are close up shots of the first board I polyed. I did not know about pre treating it. You can see the weave of the cloth which as I understand it is a bad thing. Even I can tell  this is not a good thing when compared to the board I pretreated with the diluted poly. This board, if put under water for a sustained period of time, I do not doubt for a minute would have severe delamination and form blisters.  
This is I suspect why so may are down on using poly based resin for boat repair. When it comes to the hull or rudder, there is no way I would use polyester based resin. But  for my purposes of interior it should be fine. Heaven forbid me ever being proven right about this by my boat being underwater! The board I pre treated with the diluted poly s does NOT have this problem.

 V  Berth Storage Bulkhead

                                                                                                 
 I was truly surprised how long that one cutter lasted. I started out with trying to use my sons battery operated circular saw. The blade is getting really dull  and the batteries are needing replaced, so I changed over to the EZ lock on my Dremel.  I finished the  second slant cut with it, did all the trimming on the two v berth pieces and   got one of the hull notches done before I needed to change blades. Not to bad IMHO for one blade. It was burning the wood instead of cutting it by the time I got to the  second        notch.                                                                                                               
 
That's all for now on the boat. 




We finally got the wood stove ready. It was covered up out side but still got rusted. I guess metal absorbs moisture even if it is covered really well. Any way to make along story short we had  a mess. It got rusted and I was NOT going to put it back in the house looking like that. I went out to Ace hardware to get some primer and stove paint. 

While I was there John  ( manager) reminded me about rust converters. He showed me a product but I did not like the idea of it turning a gray or white color.  I noticed a little bottle of Rustoleum Rust reformer sitting up stop shelf so even at 8 dollars plus  for a 8 oz bottle  I bought it since it turned the rust black, which was more in line with what I had seen on you tube videos about another product. Plus I figured if it went well I would not have to repaint. I was not looking forward to  having to have the guys brush all that rust off, sand it level  and then prime and repaint that stove. Long story short, it took a couple of coats to do it.  On some really bad spots we used three and four coats but it looks pretty good, even if I do say so myself.  It is a more rustic look then if we had sanded it and painted it but that is OK.  I don't think any one but me is going to care about that. I do want to put a light coat  of paint over it later so it matches the stove pipe better . We sprayed the chrome pipe so it matches . One thing I do need to mention if you use the rust converter  or paint on a stove MAKE REAL SURE YOU BURN IT WITH A REALLY GOOD SOLID STRONG HOT FIRE BEFORE YOU PUT IT IN HOUSE! That first fire is going to stink so bad it will drive you out of the House! PLEASE TRUST ME ON THIS! WE PUT A PAPER FIRE IN IT THINKING THAT WOULD DO.  I WAS SO WRONG!!!! 
 It ended up taking the best part of 2 bottles but it was worth it in just the work saved of not having to brush, sand, prime and paint the stove.

Shots of in progress stove rust conversion to show the color after rust conversion.

Not to shabby

Looking good and working just fine!!!!!!!!!

 I finally got around to ordering the parts for the Lumina.  100 bucks USD but what are you gonna do?  It has to be done.  We basically are replacing the entire  coolant over flow system. 

I can't believe how much they want for new tires for this van! It is outrageous! 500.00 for tires? I'm having my son go  check out the salvage yards.  Same issue for the boat trailer  and little trailer.
 One thing at a time it will get done. 

 The house is getting really close to  being done. Have a lot of little stuff still to do then we are good to go.




That's all for now. Sail safe but sail


 And never forget to USE DA GREY MATTER

Little Thngs

Thought I'd pop in a say hi and let you all know whats up with the V 222. Was way to hot to be out side all summer but cooler weather has me busy. Slow but sure we are getting things done.  Nothing fancy or major just a LOT of little stuff. 

 Have the old name sanded off on the port  and stern sides. Can't quite get to the starboard side until we get the van finished to move the boat away from the fence. Got the van titled and insured.

 We THINK we have isolated the FINAL issue on the van. Got the part. Seems the column ignition switch is the final problem. It must have been borderline becasue when the steering column went back in it has not started since. Everything else in the ignition system checks out. Hopefully tomorrow she runs again. Except for the lights she was running fine.

Finally discovered what the problem with the lights were. It turns out the equivalent of the electrician from H E double hockey sticks  must have been the maintenance man on this van, becasue he sure missed his calling as a electrical ax murderer.  The wiring harness for trailer light literally fell apart in my hand when I checked it. Can you say MAJOR CORROSION? Had to run all new wiring for just the van. Have not begum to wire for trailer . I don't know who put the fuses in but almost every single one  was either burnt, cracked or foggy. The corrosion in the fuse panel was so thick if you could have gotten a knife in it you could have cut off chunks.   

Put in a new turning signal harness . Ordered the one for an E 150. You would think it would work After all my title says I have an E 150. Not so . By shear accident my son noticed that an F150 harness was the perfect match to the one we had. Once we ordered that, it fit in just great.  The E150 was not only the wrong configuration  for the turn signal hole but for the 4 way notch as well. Now minor modifying  would have worked except the danged thing was about 1 mm to wide.  We both  tried every way possible to get it to go in, but it was just not going to happen. Other then that all we have had to do was the fuel pump. It was leaking gas all the way home. 


 Other then that we replaced a lot of the interior lights. One switch on the panel for inside lights does not seem to work but at this point I'm not going to worry about it. I'm thinking it is for an accessory that is no longer installed as everything works inside. There is a blue wire under the hood that looks like a CB or stereo amp was attached to it so I'm thinking that is what the extra is for. 



Got the pop top off and the interior sanded and final coat of primer on. Plan on putting the first coat of paint on her tomorrow and getting the companion way slider sanded and primed. I hate having her sitting out naked in the drive way like that, with only a tarp over her,  but it really needed to be done. Once I get the interior finished I'll put her back on and do the exterior in place.

Got the v berth tore out and the flotation foam all put together into one really big chunk. If you notice the bottom portion of the pic you can see I have TONS of extra storage in the aft part of the area under the v berth. I think when I am finished it will be a whopping 2 foot wide all the way across the widest part, which is a LOT of extra storage on a 22 ft boat.  Not sure how wide my back side is sitting down, but I can literally sit in it with at least a good hand width on each side so I did good on that.  I have been trying to decide what to do with the extra space. Part of the time I think it would be a great spot for water storage. But then who wants to hear water sloshing right under you  when your trying to sleep? Part of me thinks it is the perfect place to put groceries. I'm seriously thinking 5 gallon buckets would fit side ways real nice. I just have not taken the time to check it out. Time will decide.  Am planning on putting a bulkhead between the new storage area and the flotation material.  It will also serve the purpose of supporting the v berth. 


I actually got around to measuring the length of the v berth. It is 6 ft. It sure does not look like 6 ft. I can actually lay down in it if I don't mind my feet being a bit cramped. 

Got the bow area above the berth inside sanded, primed and ready to paint except for the area right where the fiberglassing will be at.  Once I get that done I am installing my clothes storage on the port wall.  I have those hanging closet shelves I got from Walmart for my house closet and I think with some industrial strength velcro  hung sideways they will make great wall storage. I am thinking about fastening one to the head roof along side the pot. I beats selling them and buying something else.

Have been playing with the idea of glassing the new wood for v berth. Since I'm using poly, I think I'm just going to make a sheet of glass a couple or three layers thick across the top, ( maybe thicker) poly that into place for water proofing  and paint the wood on both sides and put it on top.  I'm thinking covering an old sheet of foam I have laying around with wax paper should work. I have the old pieces to make the pattern with so I am good to go on that part. 
Have the new pieces cut out for the V berth,.

Have the first coat of paint on  the see-able portion of the head area. Installed a battery operated LED for light. 

Tore out the stand for the porta potti. It was in really sad shape. It took a wonder bar to get it out. The wood supports under the flat board were so wet and rotted I did not have to put much effort into removing them from the horizontal board with my bare hands. The horizontal board was warped so I cut a new board out of 1/2 inch. That faint smell of mildew that I could never quite pinpoint has left. 

Got busy with some poly and cloth. Was wanting to try my hand at it and this seemed like a nice safe project. Plus I needed to find a use for that water proof Bondo I got. I'm just NOT ready to try something that is NOT specifically rated for under water use on my rudder. Got the bottom part of the horizontal board done.  I am seriously debating if I should go ahead and glass the top of the board or just feather out the edges of the glass and paint it.

Did not know I was supposed to pre-coat the wood with thinned out poly first but it is more or less passable considering it is not ever going to actually be in water ( knock on wood) and no one will ever see it. Considering I'm flying by the seat of my pants on it, I think I did OK for a first try all by myself. It is not perfect by a long shot. Purely an amateur job at best. If it won fourth place in a contest it would be becasue there were only three other contestants. LOL!!! That is why I decided to do the multiple layers of glass as a water proofing for the wood in the v berth instead of glassing the wood. 

 I am thinking of going a head and play with the thinned poly coat then a coat of not thinned poly, then  cloth and more resin on the under sides of the wood  for the v berth. It is more of a "play with it on something no one will see if it comes out looking really bad" thing then truly functional, since to be safe, I'm going to do that layer of glass between the hull and the wood,  to water proof the bow hull section from the rest of the boat area.  

Got a gallon of Rustoleum top coat paint for the above water outside of the hull. Figured out what I am going to do to repair the top of the rudder.  Have been slowly sanding out the hair line cracks in the gel coat one area at a time on the port side. .

 Have finally got the broken bolt holes in the deck / hull joint filled, sanded and pre-drilled to reinstall bolts and rub rail.  Have the hair line crack in the companion way almost finished. It was cracked all the way through the glass, almost all the way across. I finally decided to cut it out completely and fill it all in. I used the stick  boat epoxy from Wal-mart to do that.  13 USD a tube but I was to chicken to try the resin yet. Its really solid and now I'm not afraid to let any one step on it. ( once I get it finished of course).  I used that same stick epoxy to fill in all those tiny little holes from previous things attached to the hull. The crack turned out to be almost all the way across the companion way. I took out a good 4/5th of that part of the boat.


The bad news is the wood we had all cut for the new lower rudder is trashed. It got wet somehow and is warped and I definitely smelt mold. We are starting form scratch on most of the pieces. The really long part was tightly in the jig I made and had wrapped in the freezer paper stayed perfect. 


Other then that she is still a work in progress.



 The house is coming along. My saw man and I finally figured out how the corner cabinet was fastened in, so that is out, sanded and ready to  re- stain. The hole in the ceiling is fixed. Unless you know where to look you can't tell where it was.  The medallions for around the ceiling fans are almost ready to install. And if I ever stop trying to stay focused on the boat long enough I will get the one short wall textured in the living room and painted. Then off the top of my head I'm wanting to say all we have left in living room is the floor. 


Take care

Sail safe but sail!!!!