Over a year since first starting prep, the deck and cabinsides are finally finally FINALLY painted and the deck non-skidded!
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As usual, click through for a closer look.
All about my big boat…
In addition to other ongoing projects, during this last week I’ve started re-bedding my portlights (windows) again. The first time (many months ago now) was as part of a general replacement, as the old plexiglass lenses had gotten crazed and murky. I bought a quarter-sheet of bonzed Lexan sheet, and cut out five new windows, cleaned up the old screw-holes and bronze frames, then put the works back together with what I had been informed was “the bomb” solution for Lexan; some Sikaflex “product”.
I say “product”, but it was more like “junk”, the same as most any other Sika product I’ve tried. Further research has shown that the Sika product intended for Lexan requires the mating surfaces to all be doped with acrylic primer prior to installation. Grrrrrr… What’s the point of buying $25 tubes of goop if you need $20 flasks of primer to make them stick?
The ports started leaking a few months in. Not only did this leave me with the inevitable interior drips, but the water was getting into the screw holes, then into the laminate, and pushing off the new cabinside paint. Shit.
So this week, extending into this weekend, I’ve pulled the bronze frames and Lexan, removed the Sikashit (crumbly and dry on the Lexan, completely un-cured and goopy on the bronze, and somewhere in-between on the fiberglass), and am re-bedding with BoatLife’s Lifecaulk. Will it work? Who knows for sure, but the BoatLife goop says “for Lexan” right on the tube, no primers, and “only” $24/tube (three tubes needed).
The other part of The Great Re-Do? I’m scrapping the screws; I’ve re-drilled and countersunk the bronze frames for 1/4″ bolts with stainless T-nuts inside the cabin. The T-nuts are visually ugly, but pretty much flush to the touch, and very strong. Also very expensive… The oval-head bolts were 35 cents a piece, but the nuts are a whopping $2.15 each! Not so bad, except that I need 50 to get the ports bolted back in. Just like that, another $200…
I’ve only gotten two of the five ports re-done, at the cost of hours or foul cursing, hammering, sweating, over-heating, sweating, cursing, getting covered in goop, sweating, etc.
Now as if all that wasn’t enough to keep my spirits soaring, I discovered that the water in my shower sump is not coming from rain through the head dorade, but actually from my midships water tank. Yay! Repairing this, of course, necessitates the removal of all the furniture in the main salon not permanently ‘glassed to the hull… After sweating and cursing through the removal of all this woodwork, I’m seriously debating deleting the folding table from the salon.
Over the last week, I’ve finally gotten rid of the last vestiges of the old nav-station, and gotten in a new one.
I didn’t get into the whole “before” pics thing until partway through the demo, but you can get the idea. The old station featured a small chart table with an even smaller lift-up portion for chart /papers/old dead flashlights/random junk access.
As well, the old nav-station was almost entirely incompatible with the new quarterberth area layout. Oh yes, and it was ugly.
The old electrical centre was a mess; weird old ceramic fuse-holders, poor access, disorganized wiring, and taking up a huge amount of volume for a relatively small amount of wiring. The new panel is still uber-simple; eschewing the usual $400+ breaker panel, I installed a pair of $21 6-circuit switched fuse panels into the new electrical box door.
The new chart table is slanted… This configuration is largely a matter of personal preference. To favour it in my eyes, the slanted top allows: greater internal storage volume, a slightly larger surface for the area footprint, and easier working, as the top of the chart is closer to the eyes/hands than on a flat table.
A large fiddle at the bottom keeps charts/pencils/rules/loose screws from sliding off, and a fiddle at the top forms a trough for the other usual nav-station effluvia: broken elastic bands, flashlights, pens, cockroach bait tablets, etc.
You’ll also notice an additional access panel in the deck of the storage space. This leads to a previously-inaccessible area behind the drawers. A really large space, at that, large enough for an inverter/charger or additional battery, or maybe just a couple reserve cases of Red Bull… Never too many storage nooks’n’crannies on a boat.
On the to-do list, I’m still wiring, and the bare wood needs a little oil to accent my lousy sanding, which will in turn distract the eye from the even lousier paintjob. Oh, and I guess a few skullskate stickers to jazz it up a bit…
As usual, click through for a closer look.
After examining the bulkheads in the boat, I’ve determined that they were originally all painted. Some previous owner must have preferred the look of wood, and scraped/sanded 99% of the paint off, revealing some nice teak face-veneer under it.
I like wood inside boats, but let’s be here: small boat+plenty of dark wood=living in a cave. The veneers are nice teak, but I wanted to re-apply paint. Besides, the screw holes of the original construction had been filled for paint instead of plugged as they would have been for a “bright” finish.
Knowing I didn’t need a veneer-perfect surface, I happily bored away for new screws where needed, and filled with epoxy filler and nitrostan under the paint. Simple. I used EasyPoxy for the coating; 2-3 coats of their white undercoater as needed, then two coats of Off-White gloss. This is a one-part linear polyurethane; mid-range for an exterior paint, but utterly bomb-proof as an interior paint.
The primer really fills the grain, providing “hide”, and the gloss flows out very well thinned 10-20% with mineral spirits. That percentage sounds really high, I know, but here in the tropics, with the crazy heat and humidity, you need all the help you can get. This way, even hack painters like myself can avoid brush marks.
These are, obviously, before-and-after pics, showing the main salon and V-berth area. I have since painted the galley faceframes and aft salon bulkeads as well. The new starboard quarterberth area has also been painted, and the nav-station is primed. I’ll wait until the rest of the nav station is back in place before finishing the topcoats there.
As you can see, it makes a huge difference! There is still plenty of solid teak trim around the bulkheads, as well as all teak panels behind the settees and as locker doors.
As always, click through for a closer look…
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