Update

The interior continues.  I have everything torn out that is coming out.  Sometime in the future I may replace the decking of the forward V-berth but it is not in horrible condition.  We'll see if the aft plywood overlay is not difficult I may replace the forward material.  The bulkheads and stringers glassed in will stay.  The weather was great this weekend for January.  Friday I long boarded the fore deck and I have it quite smooth.  There are a couple of brush strokes but I don't want to sand through the gel-coat.

 The fore deck repair is now complete and the overlapping plies are complete on the interior.  Overhead glassing is not my favorite but I'm getting better at it.  The preparation is time consuming and the placement and bagging is critical to success.  Getting a good seal on the butyl tape is challenging in this weather because of the cold surface no matter what the heating of the interior.  The high temperature outside this weekend was 50F probably in the 60s in the sun.  The plan is to cover the foredeck repair with Raptor deck.  A childhood dinghy sailing friend Danny Keseler owns Quantum sails in Seattle and started a company called Raptor decking.  Not only will the Raptor decking be the grippiest deck around it will be the best looking.  The decking will cover any imperfections of the repair.  I could spend a lifetime sanding and buffing it out just to add a covering to it.  The plan is to use the smooth Raptor decking in the cockpit.  This will make the seats comfortable on the knees while distributing point loads.

We went to the boat show this weekend to get pumped up for this coming summer and Jilann and Emily had fun.  We looked at a Beneteau 25 to get some ideas on the interior.  Other than looking rather cheap the layout and size was big.  We walked away thankful for the Ross, there is no comparison.

Emily cruising around a puddle at the Seattle boat show.  We had to do this twice, she had a blast.

I installed the main hatch today after final interior glassing of the fore deck patch.  I'm using teflon drawer guide tape as the runners for the main hatch.  I used some fuel hose cut to 3/8 of an inch long to replace the missing bumpers both in the open and closed positions.  The mechanics of the hatch feel perfect.  It is not too slippery so that the hatch will slide in and out under way, just sticky enough.  All screws sealed with 3M 4000.

I outline below the way to set up the laminate in the garage on a piece of cardboard in order to glass overhead.  This has worked well for me.

Step 1:

Hot glue bagging material to cardboard, install valve, and butyl tape leaving the wax paper in place.

Step 2:

Install breather cloth using hot glue gun.
Step 3:

Add peel ply.

Wrapping paper makes for nice templates.  It's cheap, durable, and has a nice grid pattern on the back to keep things straight.

Step 4:
Wet out fiberglass and lay in reverse order on peel ply.  Carry out to boat.  Peel off wax paper from butyl tape and lift overhead press into position, pleat bag as required then hook up to the compressor.

Routering pockets in outboard motor mount for clamps.  I used a hole saw set to a depth of 3/8" to make the pocket outline then used the router to remove the center material.  This worked well.  All of the teak is varnished thanks to Jilann.  We used six coats of Epifanes varnish and the last two coats we used a badger hair brush and tack cloths as well as a fine mesh strainer to remove any impurities of the varnish.  I think this is the secret there was no way away from the micro bubbles using foam brushes no matter the brush angle or pressure.  The varnish is curing right now but looks awesome.  Pictures to come.

Until next time, thanks for following.

Interior and Teak

The interior is proving to be considerable work.  A lot of the marine plywood is getting replaced.  The foundation bulkheads and stringers will remain these are in relatively good condition and they'll get body worked, primed, and painted with a semi-gloss marine polyurethane paint.  I have reinforced the chain plates with some laminating plies.  Added a few areas of backing plies.  I still have the last area of decay to attack as well as the overlapping plies to add that tie in the fore deck patch.  It is quite cold and I have a space heater that warms the interior considerably.  There is no problem with curing epoxy or vinyl-ester.  There is a bit of loose paint to be sanded off and 90% of this work will be prep work before the paint.  I don't have a gun to shoot the paint on the interior and I'm planning on using a foam roller.  I will try a test area first to check the result but I think it will look nice.

Additional plies added to tie the original chain plates to the secondary added chain plate vacuum bagged into position.

Vacuum pump in cockpit, hose running forward.  I learned a new technique which works well.  Layup the plies on the vacuum bag on peel ply in the reverse order in the garage wet it out.  Lift the bag and apply the bag in place with butyl tape.  

Adding backing plies.

Not a lot of teak to re-finish but I have sanded the tiller down as well as the hand rails.  On the right is the new outboard motor mount.  I reverse engineered the original on which is behind the new one.  This was not worth salvaging.  I bought the teak from Rockler.  It was 40% off and this amount of wood cost 60 USD.  I don't want to take any short cuts on materials considering the amount of work I'm investing in the project.  I feel strong about sustainability and I'm looking for re-claimed teak.  Teak just works good for some applications.  The teak is prepped for varnish and all will receive 8 coats minimum.  I love the feel of teak you can still feel the oil in the thirty year old hand rails and tiller.  I'm not sure if the tiller is original but it is very nice.  I surprised there is not a tiller extension but I will be adding one.

Window Screws and a Double Rainbow

So after installing the windows the small screws I used for retaining the windows were a bit too long.  I measured the length extending into the cabin and decided to buy some new shorter screws rather than cutting off the threaded portion.  I was worried about the heat that would be transferred from the screw body to the Acrylic.  So I picked up the shortened screws and backed out all of the screws retaining the windows I knew the Sikaflex was sufficient at retaining the slightly bent windows.  The reason I'm posting this is to share what I learned on this process.  With the screws backed out I painted the interior under the fender washers with the new interior paint and then this is where I made my mistake.  I took some Sikaflex and loaded up a syringe.  I then injected a drop of sealant into the root of the countersunk window so all of the screws would be sealed.  What happened next is the formation of a micro crack adjacent to the countersunk hole in the areas of high stress. Ugh!  It is like pulling a gummy worm tight and licking it.  A lot of cracks appear out of nowhere.  Luckily it was not that bad.

Two micro-cracks radiating from the countersink.

Not everything has been successful or perfect but that's ok.  I have learned a lot so far and I know this project is not going to be perfect.  I can always replace a window if required and the second time around I could do it in half the time the fortunate thing is the micro crack is tiny and I drilled a small hole at the end of the crack to stop the spread.  Luckily this only happened to about 6 of the 100 c'sinks.  No worries.

The thing I'm learning about this project is it is important to jump in and aggressively attack the project.  Sitting by idle and waiting for all of the details to be figured out will result in the boat sitting on the trailer.  I look forward to working on more projects this weekend.

Blizzard with Emily Rainbow!