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Weyalan · 04-03-2015, 14:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by homeless

I drilled and tapped the pulpit mounts to upgrade from loose quarter inch bolts to M8. Drilling stainless steel is not fun. I destroyed three new 9mm bits including one with a tungsten insert just to drill 4 holes so must be doing something wrong in spite of using lubrication, regular cooling with water, pressure, and short intervals.

Slow speed and continuous firm pressure is the key. And by slow, like 60 RPM is fine. Decent sharp high speed steel bits should be good enough. It helps, a lot, to drill a pilot first. For a 9 mm hole I'd probably pilot at 4 or 5 mm first. A proper machining lubricant such as Trefolex can help, but I generally just us methylated spirits, in a spray bottle.

homeless · 05-03-2015, 00:08

Today was very hot, and to make it worse the cold drink vending machine took my money, but then decided I was not worthy

It was another day of small jobs to try to finish projects. I started the day rewiring the extension cord plug, then moved the kayak and finished water blasting the deck. I still think the $35 water blaster was the best value for money so far.

The teak hand rails were removed from the pilothouse, paint ground off, then primed and faired. I moved on to sanding the fairing from yesterday, followed by another two coats of primer on the cockpit surround and stern.

The cradle for the old liferaft was removed from the foredeck which clears up lots of space, and will now mean I can actually see out of the pilothouse. Not sure why anyone would buy a pilothouse yacht with a wheel, engine controls, and all instruments inside, then block the view with a huge raft making it impossible to steer or do watches from inside.

My fridge has never worked, and the error light blinks indicating low voltage even when the battery bank is fully charged. There are at least 4 different gauges of wire spliced together between the switch and the fridge so I guessed the issue was with wiring but had not found time to look at it and so have been living on tinned food and cereal with long life milk. Today I finally got around to rewiring the fridge with a single run of large diameter wire, but the blinking light did not stop. I tried wiring the fridge directly to the batteries, and the error light stops and it gets cold, so I will need to do more work to clean up terminals between the battery and the switchboard.

The rigger still has not received the newly fabricated mast step and sleeve, so the mast is delayed until late next week. I have given up on getting the boat back in the water by the 16th, and will fly home for a week and then extend here by another month to allow me to finish all projects and get the boat looking good before departure.

There are some loose teak panels on the side decks which are annoying, and I don't want to put any more screws through the teak into the aluminium plate, so today I lifted up the ends, water blasted underneath, let it dry, then injected sikaflex underneath and weighed them down with a spare anchor. Not the best way to fix the deck, but it should stop it getting worse until I get time to do the job properly.

I pulled apart the last two deck filler mounts, ground off the sealant and flaking paint, then put it back together with plenty of sealant. The filler hose deck mounts have been the biggest source of deck leaks as they are in the scuppers and poorly sealed. On the bright side after draining the corroded fresh water tanks which were the source of much of the water in the bilges it would now be possible to vacuum the bilges, and the crabs that used to wander about down there have now been replaced by spiders.

I went for a wander around the deck with a screwdriver scraping off runaway paint spots, and a stranger shouted to get my attention, and asked "Is this a homeless shelter". I was rather confused until he mentioned he was a CF member and had just arrived with his boat.

**Ex-Calif** · 05-03-2015, 02:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by homeless

I went for a wander around the deck with a screwdriver scraping off runaway paint spots, and a stranger shouted to get my attention, and asked "Is this a homeless shelter". I was rather confused until he mentioned he was a CF member and had just arrived with his boat.

Someone must really want some pictures - LOL...

**atoll** · 05-03-2015, 02:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

Someone must really want some pictures - LOL...

he will be borrowing tools next- lol

**StuM** · 05-03-2015, 03:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by homeless

My fridge has never worked, and the error light blinks indicating low voltage even when the battery bank is fully charged. There are at least 4 different gauges of wire spliced together between the switch and the fridge so I guessed the issue was with wiring but had not found time to look at it and so have been living on tinned food and cereal with long life milk. Today I finally got around to rewiring the fridge with a single run of large diameter wire, but the blinking light did not stop. I tried wiring the fridge directly to the batteries, and the error light stops and it gets cold, so I will need to do more work to clean up terminals between the battery and the switchboard.
...
I went for a wander around the deck with a screwdriver scraping off runaway paint spots, and a stranger shouted to get my attention, and asked "Is this a homeless shelter". I was rather confused until he mentioned he was a CF member and had just arrived with his boat.

You should have told me your fridge wasn't working, I had a dozen coldies in mine

homeless · 06-03-2015, 23:11

A busy two days, but productive.

Yesterday I finished sanding the fairing on the pilothouse after removing the teak hand rails, then applied top coat to the pilothouse, mast deck gate, stern, cockpit surround, and around windows and vents where I had faired. This MAY mean that I am done with grinding, fairing, sanding, and painting the outside of the boat, apart from antifoul. I picked up my re-stitched dodger from the canvas guy and also spent some time at the riggers crimping new connectors onto the ends of the mast wiring.

Today started with a cleanup inside the pilothouse, then moved on to pulling out old copper refrigeration pipes, speaker wiring, and coax cables. There is a microwave oven in the galley but I have never gotten it to work, so today I connected the mains power and got out the multimeter to investigate. It took a while to check and trace the wiring as I am generally slower when investigating something that can kill me, but eventually I found that the microwave switch on the switchboard was not connected to the mains breaker ... hmm don't think I did that .... I connected it up, flipped the switch, and there was a bang from the galley and a puff of electrical smoke, so if the oven was not dead before, it is now. I pulled off the wood surround from the oven, removing nails and breaking glue while trying to avoid damage to the veneer, and when I eventually got it out I found written on the back of the oven ... 120 volts. The boat was imported to Australia almost 20 years ago, the electrical system was modified to 240 volts, and for that whole time there has been an unusable 120 volt microwave taking up space and slowly rusting away in the galley ... but not any more. Now I need to work out what to do with that space. I don't really want any AC electrical gear on the boat, so maybe turn it into a cupboard.

I moved on to the engine room, sprayed 3 cans of degreaser around the floor and in the bilges, then hosed it out, and bailed out the remainder of the water. This marks the end of the engine rebuild, and will hopefully result in another bilge dry enough to vacuum.

The afternoon was spent masking off the pilothouse windows on the inside, then continuing with the painting that I started before the boat was pulled out of the water 2 months ago. Once the painting is complete I can then go back sanding and varnishing to finish that work.

Eyr · 06-03-2015, 23:19

Truly inspiring to follow your hard work homeless! Keep it up!

homeless · 07-03-2015, 00:30

My sonar sensor left Miami International airport February 25 so I assumed it was on it's way to Australia ... but it has now left LA International airport on March 6. 9 days to travel between 2 airports in one country !!! It would have been faster to put it in a truck.

Cadence · 07-03-2015, 07:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by homeless

My sonar sensor left Miami International airport February 25 so I assumed it was on it's way to Australia ... but it has now left LA International airport on March 6. 9 days to travel between 2 airports in one country !!! It would have been faster to put it in a truck.

They did put it on a truck in LA for the rest of the trip.

**JPA Cate** · 07-03-2015, 11:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by homeless

My sonar sensor left Miami International airport February 25 so I assumed it was on it's way to Australia ... but it has now left LA International airport on March 6. 9 days to travel between 2 airports in one country !!! It would have been faster to put it in a truck.

Overnight to SYD or BRI, possible delay in Customs, then up to Gold Coast, 2 or 3 more days to you, if lucky.

Frustrating.

Ann

El Pinguino · 07-03-2015, 11:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cadence

They did put it on a truck in LA for the rest of the trip.

Maybe sent by boat... are the longshoremen still on strike in LA?

socaldmax · 07-03-2015, 11:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by homeless

Another hot day, perfect for fairing.

I applied epoxy fairing 3 times to all the newly ground and primed spots around the windows and vents, and sanded two times. I estimate 75 trips up and down the ladder-of-death today carrying tools. If it does not rain tonight I will do one more sanding in the morning which should be the last, then two more coats of epoxy primer.

You don't have a tool belt?

socaldmax · 07-03-2015, 12:08

Back in my groom team days when we traveled a lot, we had a corporate deal with UPS for 2 day service. We could ship anything up to the max weight for air travel (55 or 65 lbs?) via 2 day and it was cheaper than even their ground rates.

There were a couple of times when we needed parts overnight, and we used counter to counter service at the airport. One of our support staff would take it down to the airport freight counter and pay cash. It would get put in the hold with all of the luggage and we'd pick it up at the freight counter at the destination airport. Not as expensive as some of the courier services, and it gets there as fast as a passenger would, depending on the number of flights necessary to get there. It's advertised as same day service, but Miami to Australia would obviously be a very long day.

For something as small as a sonar transducer, it's probably fairly affordable, just for future reference.