More Little Projects Continue (and will until we depart. . . )

So, by now you have concluded that I’m a liar. All my projects are NOT finished, as I wrongly reported. I’m working down through my “nice to have” list now, and included one here that wasn’t listed earlier, although I’ve been planning it for a while.

Ship’s Compass

My old bulkhead compass is tired, dark, and impossible to read any longer. It had to be replaced, but I was thinking it would be done underway, because I didn’t think it would arrive with enough time to install it before departure. It arrived a week early, so here we go.

Old compass. See what I mean? At one point, years ago, the cover was blown off, and that sealed it’s eventual doom as UV darkened and clouded the clear lens of the compass.

New compass. Bright, clear, readable. Ridiculously expensive.

I had to create a new bezel for it from scrap teak I had. Cutting this shape out of a small piece is perilous. The danger is that the piece will split with the grain if any stress is applied. I managed to cut it out without incident, but split the top inch off when drilling mounting holes to screw into the bulkhead. Fortunately, God made epoxy glue for just such an event. I glued it up, and the crack is invisible.

Here it is, installation almost complete. I need to trim the bungs and put two more coats of varnish on it. Note the nice, tight-fitting cover!

Stove Storage Board

This one was on the new list, and I’m glad I had the time to get to it. The shelf board was really quite damaged from rain water ingress (which means I should also try hard to find and fix the leak).

Admittedly, this isn’t marine ply. It’s birch ply, and I chose it specifically to match (as well as possible) the teak ply that was the original. I got the color right, for the most part, and it stays hidden most of the time, so the species of wood isn’t critical. Regardless, this shelf lasted well over ten years. The new one will do better, since I sealed it with epoxy before installing it.

Here it is, stained but not epoxied.

Installed, awaiting the adjacent hinged shelf to be attached.

Here’s the assembly all put together. The hinged shelf folds up and the stove top stows behind the hinged section.

Like this . . .

The stove top comes out to play when it’s needed, and it all gets put away when not needed.

Like this. . .

Punch List Complete (new list started!)

This makes me feel good!

I’ve accomplished all my boat project goals for prior to departure. Now I’m just doing a few “nice to have” minor chores before departure. A partial list is below:

Remaining Boat Chores

Cover plates for bow cleats v-berth (Fabricated, now being varnished)

Renew lashing for dinghy firehose (needs only partial relashing)

Wire in a couple more charging ports (I have them, but need to do)

New Stove Storage board (The old one is rotting and needs replacing)

Chase leaks? (These are topside rainwater leaks that show up near the gunnels. Not serious, but If I can think of nothing else to do, I’ll chase these)

Anchor for Dink (Ordered)

Evaluate wet suits (Still in the attic. . . )

Get new flares (Ordered)

Fore Hatch Finally Complete and Installed

I could talk a lot about this, but I think I’ll post mostly photos. Some of the old and new side-by-side, and then the rest of the photos of the new hatch. I’ve written elsewhere about the faults of the old hatch, and the construction mistakes I made. It actually performed pretty well, considering that it was serviceable for more than 10 years before needing replacement. I think I did better this time (though not perfect by any means), and will probably last as long as I own the boat.

Inside painted white, holes drilled and sealed with epoxy, lexan installed, though you might not be able to tell it’s there.

Old and new. This was taken before I moved the hardware over to the new hatch.

Most of the underside of the old hatch has rotted.

View from below after installation.

I’m pleased with how it turned out. Time will tell if I did things well enough to last a long time. I managed to get 8 coats of varnish on it before I realized I needed to stop taking things apart on the boat, and start putting things back together.

Project Updates 14 April

I’ve been at work with a lot of little projects. Ironic how after servicing the cooling system and the fuel system, I then had problems with both. I rediscovered a basic truth regarding cooling systems: the reservoir tank must actually have coolant in it to work! I had added about half the amount needed, then ran out of coolant. My test run of the engine revealed that it would run at idle just fine with no problems, but under load, the over-heat alarm would sound. Back at the pier, I checked the coolant level – aha! Ran to the store for coolant, finished filling the reservoir – cooling problems solved.

Fuel system glitch: I bled, rebled, rechecked all the hose fittings. . . still having problems. Engine would surge, especially under higher rpms, but even while maintaining a cruising speed, it would surge unaccountably. The one area of the system I hadn’t serviced yet was the Racor filter. I removed the old filter after draining old fuel and a little water from the separator, then installed the new filter and rebled the system. Problem solved. Yeah, it was pretty dirty.

While removing the sails last fall, I found a large section of leach on the jib that was separating at the seam line, so I knew that a repair was in the cards for this spring. Several weeks ago I spent a couple hours watching my favorite murder mystery while repairing the sail.

My repair material of choice is white Gorilla Tape. Very sticky, easy to apply to both sides of the material, very strong. I always sew down the edges with my Speedy Stitcher.

I also installed the two-speed winches my neighbor gifted me. Though not pretty and shiny, they work very well. The newly lubricated pawls and gears provide a satisfyingly sharp “click” as they turn.

Above is a fuzzy photo of the mounting from underneath. The tasked presented several access challenges. The first was accessing the port side winch fasteners through an access hatch. There was a fair amount of room to operate the tools, installation of the new pieces wasn’t hard. What made it difficult was the original fasteners were close to two inches too long. My painful arthritic hands needed multiple rest breaks to unscrew the nuts. It seemed like miles of thread! As you might be able to see, I replaced the fasteners with much more appropriately sized bolts. The starboard side wasn’t too difficult, even with the same ridiculously long bolts. Access was much easier.

I also stripped the interior cushion covers off the settees and washed them. I don’t have an “after” picture here, but I was very pleased with the result. The colors are bright and clean again.

Finally, i have just applied the sixth coat of varnish on the forehatch, although this photo was taken after the fourth coat. I’ve very pleased with how the grain is filling and how shiny the hatch is becoming.

Its actually a good bit nicer looking than this now.

Today’s main project will be to ascend the rig and check everything over, with my neighbor’s help. I will also install a new deck light and line cage over the deck light. I own a Mast Mate flexible ladder that I can hoist to the masthead, but as I experimented with it yesterday, I learned that it is still quite difficult climb. The steps are flexible, of course, and it takes a good bit of strength, flexibility, and stamina to use it. I don’t have any of those attributes anymore, so a bosun’s chair is going to be my vehicle.

Varnishing the Time Away

I’m waiting for parts to reassemble my engine.  Not major parts, just gaskets, O-rings, seals – that sort of stuff. But I really can’t put it back together and stick it back into the hole without these essential, though minor, parts.

Meanwhile. . . I need to varnish stuff. So that’s what I’m doing. Not a lot of effort involved, just patience. The first item needs a bit of introduction. I built an anchor platform about 8 years ago, and used red oak, which has proven to be very strong. I’ve had trouble keeping a good, protective finish on it, though. The first finish I used was epoxy underneath 4-5 coats of varnish. Seems like this should have been good, but it failed much sooner than I thought it should have. I refinished it after several years and used only varnish, but didn’t religiously recoat twice a year, and didn’t consistently fix the nicks and flaws that inevitably gathered on its surface, due to the nature of its use. Finally this past winter, as the finish completely failed where the roller axle is mounted, that glued-up block of oak split, doubtless due to water intrusion and the freeze-thaw cycles.

              This is the original design

And here’s a photo of the winter’s damage:

If you look carefully just above the top of the roller, you can see a large crack in the wood, which runs right to the place where the axle is mounted.

So here’s my solution. I have acquired a cost-free stainless anchor roller (thanks again to the free-cycle bins at the near by marina), and it looks like it will work perfectly mounted on the anchor platform. I cut off the damaged old roller and mounting, and relieved all the edges.

I’ve drilled the mounting holes for the new roller plate, and today I finished the final coat of vanish. 5 in all.

And this is (roughly) how the new roller will mount onto the old platform.

All my varnish items here on one table getting “the business.”

I think what has struck me most about this whole varnish routine this spring is how much bugs seem to love vanish. I think wet, sticky varnish is a bug magnet.

 

 

Refinish Drop Boards

After 8 years of pretty much continuous use, I needed to strip and revarnish the drop boards. I’ve repaired nicks, dings, chips and breaks in the finish up to now, but there have developed several dark spots under compromised varnish that are too extensive to repair.  The boards are red oak, which is a strong, heavy material that looks beautiful under varnish.  The drawback with this wood is that it is prone to rot, which means any break in the protective finish needs to be repaired right away, or deep dark stains result, followed by deterioration.

The middle board has two vents built into it for fresh air movement.  With the forward hatch open an inch or so and the vents in the middle drop board, I never have any problem with mold/mildew through the sailing season, and not much of a problem during the winter when the cover is on.  However, where the vents are epoxied into the board has been a problem area, and it’s been difficult to keep them sealed from the weather. Aside from chips and wear spots on the upper and lower boards, the middle board in the vent area is affected the most.

I spent several hours out of two days with chemical stripper and a scraper, only to remember a little later that a heat gun would have done a more efficient job. The heat gun is not the tool for the epoxy-glued vents. Heat would weaken the glue bond and I’d have more problems, so regardless I would have needed to use the chemical stripper on the middle board.

It’s a messy process. The only way I could do this at the pier was because it was a windless day, and I could collect all the varnish shavings.

There were many, many coats of varnish to remove. 16 or 20, probably.  This is because I refresh the finish at least once each year, often twice. It’s not really a lot of labor to refresh the varnish – really, just a light sanding with fine sand paper, wipe down with mineral spirits, and then a quick coat of new vanish thinned 10 to 15% with mineral spirits or paint thinner. But it does build up and begin to look bad after years of refresher coats, and needs to be all removed. An important tool for this job is a paint scraper (or two) with a mill file handy to sharped the blade every so often. It is surprising how tough the varnish layers really are. They were hard to remove.

The louvers in the vents, as you can imagine, were the most tedious to prepare. I used the scraper and several applications of stripper, working on both sides of the board. After that, I wrapped sandpaper around a paint stir and sanded all of the interior surfaces of the louvers.

It looks most of the way stripped here, but it’s actually only about half done. Two or three more applications of stripper were needed to get most of the varnish off.

This board is finally done, and I have also bleached it to remove any water stains that stripper didn’t get.

I used oxalic acid to get any dark stains out of the wood, followed by a neutralizer (baking soda in water). I discovered a few years ago, that if the acid isn’t thoroughly neutralized – not just rinsed with water – that the finish would turn milky underneath the varnish after some time in the sun.

The vents are taped off so that I can fill the seams between the board and vents with thickened epoxy. The sanding process excavated some of the original expoy. This is also where the finish failed, and I want to ensure that the crevices are completely filled and sealed.

First sealer coat of varnish applied. Not very shiny yet, but protected against the weather until I can add additional coats.

Brilliant Daysailing

This was one of the days you dream about. Wind 13-15, temp 72F, crystal clear sky. About 1430 I said to my wife, “I have to go out on the boat. Wanna go?” She really did, but couldn’t – had stuff to do.

I got the boat ready and cast off. Went 200 yards and turned around. The engine was surging suspiciously. Fuel, obviously – filter? No. . . that’s the way it acts when it’s low on fuel. I eased back into my slip and didn’t even tie up. Dug my two jerry cans of fuel out of the lazarette and put all 11 gallons in the tank. It holds 13. That pretty much confirmed the symptoms I was experiencing as low fuel. Like many sailors, I have a fuel gauge on board, but it doesn’t work! It used to, but was never very accurate. I’m pretty sure I can bring it back to life with a little cleaning and adjustment of the float mechanism, but it’s not one of the more fun maintenance items, and if you carry extra fuel, it’s not really a problem.

Back out the creek, out into the bay (no engine surging now), out of the traffic area. There are white caps, the wind is SE with lots of fetch kick up the chop. I set reefs in both sails before raising, and off we go at 5+ knots – late season hull fouling taking half-to-three-quarters of a knot off our speed.

I love the way the reefed headsail sets. The shape is perfect!

With the reefs I was comfortable and controlled, but hard on the wind, we were heeling a fair amount. Out 5 miles past the pound nets. Not many other boats out today. I passed one other sailboat. He was on the opposite tack, sailing down my reciprocal course. We waved. By then we were out in the open bay and shore breeze had stopped affecting the wind strength and direction, so our angle of heel was less.

I tacked, and followed the other boat back the way we came. The afternoon was getting old and the wind was consistently more moderate as evening drew near. Still, the reef was a comfortable way to sail.

Sailing back down the outbound course, opposite tack.

We crossed the channel, out of the traffic lanes, and hove to. Dropped and bagged the sails and motored towards the creek entrance.

Backing in with a little trouble – wind on the stern, I kept having to bump back into forward with opposite helm to get lined up – then we were parked, tied up, cleaned up, closed up.

I took a few photos of the varnish-fortified Cetol teak.

As it turns out, the shiny bits are hard to capture with a cell phone camera. I’ve gotten lazy – I used to use my dslr for all of this stuff.You know you have the right boat when you keep looking back at her as you walk away.

Different Perspective

Hey, this is a different view for me –

Without the tiller pilot, I can rarely leave the helm. Note the fishing rods along the starboard side of the coach roof.

It’s really cool to get out of the cockpit and stand on the bow while motoring. I can do this under sail also, if the wind is moderate. Not a big deal I guess, just novel for me.

I’ve been on the bay several times lately – not sailing so much, as the wind has been very calm – but drifting, and. . .  fishing! Yes, another novel thing for me to do. I fished with my dad all the time growing up, but haven’t done so for years. When we moved from Jacksonville to Washington DC, I got rid of all my fishing gear, seeing that the kids we grown up and I didn’t have that much interest in it beyond the kids’ interest. But I’ve gotten my line wet several times this year (acquired some gear at the second-hand store near me). Sadly, my skills are less than poor. I haven’t even gotten a bite this year! Truth be told, I was never a very good fisherman and things very obviously haven’t changed in the intervening years. Oh well. . . actually, it’s kind of better if the fish don’t bite. That way my solitude isn’t interrupted. Still, my son and I are going this Saturday, and we are anticipating catching more fish than we can manage ;-).

I’ve started my fall rounds of varnishing with the nice weather. I discovered something interesting last year, and have decided to experiment a bit more with it. Last fall, I had a little varnish left over in my container, and wanting to use the same container for Cetol. . .  I mixed the two together. It was mostly Cetol, so I didn’t think a very little bit of varnish would have any effect. I was wrong. The varnish made the Cetol finish glossy. I noticed this fall that the small piece of wood finished like this suffered almost zero degradation since last fall, unlike the Cetol-only pieces. Hmmm. . .  So I mixed some varnish and Cetol and recoated all the woodwork that usually got only Cetol. We’ll see how it stands up over the next year. I like the way it looks too – it’s the dark natural finish Cetol, but has a hard glossy shine to it. I’ll get some photos of it next time I’m down at the boat.

Drifting around today, I hauled out my light-air sail and hoisted it. It’s actually (probably) a mizzen staysail from a ketch, but it’s so light-weight that it works okay as a sort of asymmetrical spinnaker with a high clew. It filled and drew well in about 3-5 knots of breeze. It’s fun to just slowly ghost along with a sail that draws that nicely. I should have taken a photo, but, well, I didn’t!

Eye Brow Trim – Finished

Finally finished up this little project. Always a challenge when I have to dodge rain drops. I installed the trim back into a fresh application of Boatlife teak-colored bedding compound, then installed the plugs with varnish as glue. Some folks use shellac, but varnish seems to work just as well. Gluing them in with anything stronger makes them difficult to remove next time.

Plugs set, waiting for the varnish to cure so I can trim and sand flush.

To trim, set a sharp (very sharp) chisel 1/8″ proud of the surface being finished, and gently tap. The top of the plug splits away. You can do this several more times for a curved profile to pare away excess material at the edges before you begin to sand. Just don’t set the chisel too closely to the base material, or the plug may split away below the surface. I set the beveled edge of the chisel towards the eyebrow so that plug tends to split up and away from the base. After trimming with a chisel, use a small block with 150 grit sandpaper wrapped around, and sand only the proud part of the plug, as much as possible. You will certainly sand a little bit of the base material as well, but careful attention to the level of the plug will keep it to a minimum. After all is smooth and flush, coat with your finish of choice. I use Cetol on these.

Done. Trimmed, sanded, and coated with Cetol.

More Eye Brow Work

No, I’m not plucking. . .

I applied the second coat of Cetol to both sections of eye brow trim today. Before all the rain and wind last week, I scraped and sanded smooth the trim pieces, and applied the first coat of Cetol. I also deepened the plug holes with my drill press for closing up the screw holes with bungs. However, I had to buy a new plug cutter, because I have mislaid the one I already own. Oddly, this didn’t work well at all. The hardware store sold me a 3/8″plug cutter, and I duly deepened the 3/8″ holes to accommodate a longer plug. However, the diameter of the plugs cut by the new cutter turned out to be slightly small, and didn’t bind into the holes at all. I rechecked my drill bit, rechecked the plug cutter. . . all the sizes matched, but the plugs didn’t fit the holes. I wound up buying some 3/8″ teak plugs at West Marine, and they fit fine.

Today I also cleaned up the coach roof edge where they will be reinstalled. I’ve found that a product called “Goof Off” works really well for this, but as I was in the hardware store today buying a new bottle of it, it occurred to me that lighter fluid might be a similar product. I know several craftsmen who use it for cleaning purposes. Regardless, I came home with Goof Off.

Materials and tools for this task.

Once back on the boat, I used a rag saturated with Goof Off and wiped in on a 12-14 inch section, then took a putty knife and scraped the loosened bedding compound. This took off about 75 percent. I re-applied Goof Off, and scrubbed it with a 3-M pad, which almost always removed the rest of the material. This entire process took about a half hour to do the port side (rehabbed the starboard side last year). So it’s clean now, and ready for re-installation of the trim.

Close-up of the cleaned vs uncleaned area.

Just a longer view of the project area.

Finally, I began the spring Cetol re-coat of the other teak trim still installed in place. I actually got smart this time, and didn’t try to do all of it at once, there by avoiding bumping into sticky Cetol as I work my way around the deck.