A new frontier for me...

[David_Old_Jersey]

Great pictures. Obviously no hosepipe yet available

Originally Posted by Drexel Engineer

Also, I found a lot of rotted wood. I will be replacing but I'd like to have nice stained and lacquered wood, not painted ply. What are you recommendations? What can I get for relatively cheap? Also, how do you secure wood to the fiberglass hull, epoxy?

I would suggest taking care when cutting things out as even "rotted wood" may (depending on exactly what and where you are talking about) be providing support to the structure. Of course doable, but you just would not want to remove all the bulkheads etc at the same time.......but I am sure as an Engineer you knew that

Personally I would cut out as little as possible and repair using wood and epoxy or just good "old fashioned" fibreglass resin - cos it is cheaper.....cosmetically if you don't want paint you could instead of trying to get a finish to the repair good enough for varnish / lacquer instead use veneer and then varnish / lacquer this. But paint is cheaper as well as covering any cosmetic "shortfalls" to the repairs well - plus white will add light down below. Once you have replaced the fixtures and fittings (and psosibly added a few of your own) this will help break up the Hospital effect of everything being surgically white.....but it's all a question of taste
Looking forward to the interior shots

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha Drexel,
Have you got those books that we recommended? Check with local libraries if you can't find them to buy. Those books talk about what you are doing and explain with words, diagrams and photos that we could never get into the limits of this forum.

"From and Bare Hull" "This Old Boat" "The Fiberglass Boat Repair Manual"

Sometimes doing is better than reading first but in this case its good to have some instructions to follow before doing. Some wood is structural and some is not. Good to know which is which before tearing it out.

Kind Regards,
JohnL

[Drexel Engineer]

Will do. I will order them this evening.

Shawn

[SkiprJohn]

Oops, It is "From a Bare Hull" by Ferenc Mate.

[Devon1299]

Quite a productive weekend we had. Boat is going to need some extensive work. However, we have plenty of manhours of labor in the vault. Anybody in the mid-atlantic area with some left over materials from previous boat re-hauls or just junk they have sitting in their garage; we'd love to take it off your hands. We can do a roadtrip if the materials are large, or pay postage and handling otherwise.
-Devon

[Drexel Engineer]

Hello everyone,

I powerwashed the outside of her. WOW looks like a nice boat. Sorry I do not have any pictures just yet. I will post them up this weekend when I return home. Quick question: Even with the power wash there are some really heavy stains on the top side. No even scrubbing with soap got her out. Any suggestions as to remove there "super" stains?

Thanks for your help,
Shawn

[delmarrey]

If they are berries, leaves or any other bio-material the sun will eventually bleach them out. If they are chemical, then it's going to take another chemical or rubbing compound to get them out.

enjoy.............................._/)

[Doghouse]

For most of the interior wood, ply is the way to go. One thing that you need to know about wood is that it moves. Not that much lengthwise, but across the grain it will move a substantial amount, and over time will develop a amount of cup. This is the reason for using plywoods. Because the grains alternate in direction, the movement is minimized. If you do not like the end grain of plywood, and who does, you can easily cover the ends with solid wood, or glue on veneer.

[Morgan Paul]

Try Clorox Cleanup. Spray it on let it sit for 5 or 10 minutes. It works for me. It will also kill mildew dead. You want to get rid of any mildew in the boat before it gets warmer and spreads.

[Doghouse]

Soft scrub was what we used when there was a fire at the oil refinery. That and after each air show. BIG PITA!

[acesatsea]

Shawn, I didn't see any mention of supporting the swing keel. Its probably a bad idea to just let it hang on the cable. From trailering a Thistle, we learned to let the weighted centerboard down on a suppport roller so the lift cable was not constantly under stress. This is especially important when moving, as the bouncing weight will put a heavy load on the lifting rig.
Good luck on your project.
Regards, Bligh

[TX Sailor]

Email me when you are ready for bottom paint (if you are going to leave her in the water) I might be able to help. What else do you need? I work at a full service marina and sometimes we throw away things that are useable. I threw away a perfectly good head a couple of weeks ago. I didnt have a place to store it and no one wanted it.

The folks on this message board are great but there is another message board that is geared more towards small boats like yours (and mine) try Trailer Sailor - The Online Resource for the Small Boat Sailor - Trailer Sailer for more ideas. Between the two you can find info on about anything you might run into.

[Drexel Engineer]

Hello everyone,

First off thanks a lot to “TX sailor” any help you can give me will be great, especially for the obscene price of bottom paint! I’ll contact you shortly.

Also, “Delmarrey” thank you for the manual. I received it this weekend. The drawings of the rigging answer a lot of questions I’ve had.

Sorry for the being late on the post, I try and post each Monday night. In the final week at Drexel and life is hell.

Last weekend my crew and I plummeted deep into the darkest part of this refit, the clean up. I can now understand why most projects get abandoned at this stage. Luckily for me I found a secret weapon to help me along. Took a trip to the Depot and walked out with a gallon of “outdoor” bleach, it is apparently stronger, but it is very viscous. I mixed that in with some lemon scented Soft Scrub, per your recommendations, and it created quite a cleaner. The before and after pictures of the bow speak for themselves. I should note that after a while Devon and I noticed our hands were beginning to burn. We gave in and bought some yellow gloves, too late though we have some odd “burns” on our fingers and palms. We will certainly going to be more careful with chemicals in the future. This brings me to a question for you gentleman. I noticed that there are some very persistent rust stains on some parts of the cabin bilge. Is it safe to use a rust remover chemical in fiberglass, i.e. CLR?

When cleaning became too monotonous we stared another endless operation of scrubbing out the old interior paint. This again is a killer. I look forward to when we can move out of this stage of the refit, and see more concrete results of our work.

About paints, I went to the Depot yet again and found a peculiar paint that I think will hold up nicely. Behr has a latex paint that applies some nano sized particles in order to make the latex paint nearly impermeable. Have any of you had experience with this paint? The “guy” who was selling this to me claims it is the toughest stuff he’s worked with and took him weeks too get it off his hand, he used chemical removers too. I am thinking of using this paint in combination with “Gripper” primer. Any thoughts on this would be helpful. I am weary of “marine” grade on a lot of things.

I’ll keep this post short, and will post tomorrow with some more descriptions.

Here are some of the pictures:

http://h1.ripway.com/sdr352/Cleanup%20Week%201/dirtyship.JPG Topside before the cleanup.

http://h1.ripway.com/sdr352/Cleanup%20Week%201/cleanbow.JPG What a difference, blinded by the light

http://h1.ripway.com/sdr352/Cleanup%20Week%201/scraping.JPG Notice the previous owner failed to prime anything.

http://h1.ripway.com/sdr352/Cleanup%20Week%201/dirtyvberth.JPG The v berth before cleanup…sorry no after picture yet. I’ll get some this weekend.

Alright guys thanks a lot. I’ll post some more details of last weekend tomorrow.

[delmarrey]

For the rust stains start with some pure lemon juice and soak it for a while. The problem with FG is its porous and absorbs stains. Acid is what eats rust. Start light and work your way up. The ultimate is Nitric Acid but PPE's ventilation is a must.

90% of the time working on boats one will need some kind of PPE's. Mostly gloves and a dust mask but you should ALWAYS have that stuff on hand!!!

As far as most boaters are concerned, marine paint is the best out there for marine use. It's the UV resistants’ that counts. A lot of marine suppliers usually have clearance sales and one can pick up good paint for less then half the cost.

[Morgan Paul]

Hi Drex, bleach is the best way to go, but you have to be careful, chemical burns can be just as dangerous as heat related burns. Be careful with your lungs in confined areas.
Gripper Primer is a very good for wood, formica, and fiberglass. I would highly recomend Zinsser PERMA-WHITE® Mold & Mildew-ProofTM* Interior Paint for inside the cabin. It is self-priming, it will adhere to almost anything. Midew will not live on it. It is espcially good for inside cabinets and lockers. You can buy it at home depot. As a residential painting contractor for over 25 years I have used it in the most wettest and mildew prone areas imaginable. I am now using it on my my boat. Get the surface as clean and dust free as possible. Be very careful with solvents in confined spaces the fumes will spread low down and may be ignited with a tiny spark. Use fans to circulate air.

Paul