Grinding... Why did there have to be grinding!

Spent the last two days grinding out the keel seam. In order to lay in enough fiberglass to make the joint strong, I'm taking out quite a bit of fiberglasss with the grinder. While the project is still fun, theres a lot not to like about grinding. It's messy, loud uncomfortable work. I still have more to do and the shop vac already has about 3 gallons worth of dust in it, thats not counting the dust that has attached itself to my skin either...

There's really nothing fun or interesting about this part. Here is a photo anyway:
What is slightly more interesting is the job Im trying to convince Niki to help me with tomorrow, keelbolts. As long as I'm doing the seam repair, I might as well (theres that saying again...) tighten up the bolts. So tomorrow I'm going to loosen all the bolts, put some new glass under the backing plates, and tighten them all up with God's own torque wrench. Not exactly fun, but it's a nice break between grinding sessions. It's also going to be most effective before I glass the seam.

Heres a shot of one of the things I really liked about 88. Most Chris Craft Shields have a bunch of plywood that makes up the mast step support. This one has a more modern fiberglass support, which is certainly stronger, and probably lighter than a mass of rotten plywood. This also makes it much easier to access the forward bolt. If the boat didn't have this, I would probably have to make one.

I keep trying to think of a way to make the last couple days work sound interesting, and all I can thnk of is sitting on the trailer, grinding a steady stream of abrasive dust into my face. The only fun part is every couple minutes I stick the shop vac all over my head, and into the glasses, to get rid of dust and condensation. That much look funny I suppose.