Want to get everything as perfect as possible for awlgrip, so you guessed it, today was more prep!
Sanded the hull to 100grit. It's now a lovely blue with red splotches.
Faired the bow and applied a thin coat of neat epoxy. Have a couple small places to fill in which will be done with polyester putty.
Worked on the gunwale, makingit waterproof and smooth. Its starting to look good enough that I'm really thinking about just putting on the toerail and not using the vinyl rubrail. Can't believe how many times I've changed my mind on this. Final call will be made after it's painted. If it looks good, no rail. Should the joint crack (possible) badly, next year I'll just put the vinyl on.
Kristian
8.5hrs.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
More sanding, etc.
Continued the paint prep, and sanded off all the faired patches. Today was mostly just sanding the same old stuff, so no photos.
My dad came by to advise on the wood toerail situation. I was either thinking "heck with it, just put the old stuff back" or "heck with it, just get all new wood" but he made more sense and actually looked it all over. We've got 9 pieces of 3/4"x5/8" teak rail, 2 of which are worth keeping (the forward most pieces, which are 13' long) and the rest will be replaced. He's also routing the old and new pieces so they have a nice rounded edge (easier to hike on)
Kristian 5 hrs.
My dad came by to advise on the wood toerail situation. I was either thinking "heck with it, just put the old stuff back" or "heck with it, just get all new wood" but he made more sense and actually looked it all over. We've got 9 pieces of 3/4"x5/8" teak rail, 2 of which are worth keeping (the forward most pieces, which are 13' long) and the rest will be replaced. He's also routing the old and new pieces so they have a nice rounded edge (easier to hike on)
Kristian 5 hrs.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Filling and Fairing
Did more paint prep today, mostly on the deck.
The deck needed lots of small repairs: gouges and scrapes, old hardware holes to be filled etc. All the old holes were filled in, and anything thats being reused has been drilled/routed/epoxy-filled/redrilled. Above is a lousy photo of the deck before the repairs are sanded. The brown is epoxy and lightweight fairing filler.
I also did a relatively fun job in fairing the partner box into the deck. I ran a fillet of the same epoxy mix around the base of the partner box, and shaped it so it will appear that the box is a molded part of the deck. Might need one more application tomorrow to get it perfect.
Had an hour left at the end of the day so I sanded more of the hull. It's about 60% complete.
Kristian
7hrs
The deck needed lots of small repairs: gouges and scrapes, old hardware holes to be filled etc. All the old holes were filled in, and anything thats being reused has been drilled/routed/epoxy-filled/redrilled. Above is a lousy photo of the deck before the repairs are sanded. The brown is epoxy and lightweight fairing filler.
I also did a relatively fun job in fairing the partner box into the deck. I ran a fillet of the same epoxy mix around the base of the partner box, and shaped it so it will appear that the box is a molded part of the deck. Might need one more application tomorrow to get it perfect.Had an hour left at the end of the day so I sanded more of the hull. It's about 60% complete.
Kristian
7hrs
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Red WTF???
88 keeps changing colors! In the last three days, the boat has been green, gray, blue, red, and then (half) blue again! The green and gray were old paint, the blue is gelcoat and the red is a surfacing putty to cover up pinholes in the gelcoat.
Here are Niki and Dave enjoying the (briefly) blue boat. Note out first attempt at attaching the bow chock. Niki came out this morning and buffed the mast. It's amazing what a little elbow grease will do! While nothings going to make our old (possibly 40 yr old) mast look great, at least it's clean and shiny now.
Here's the bow repair as we left it. I spent a couple hours sanding fair the glass we laid yesterday. It took a while but turned out very nice. I'm confident that this repair is strong and will be aesthetically pleasing. After the sanding our helpful friend Mick applied the 407 fairing compound. I was going to put it on, but Mick is very very good at this kind of work and his first try is probably better than my 1st-4th try! A mans got to know his limitations, eh Clint Eastwood? This will cure up, and next week I'll sand it fair and spot fill.
Here's where we left the boat: half red, half blue-purple. For the second half of today Dave and I sanded more, I did the port side hull and Dave did the deck.On track for getting into the paint room on time and spraying 545 primer. The last three days have been great for getting back on (ahead of in fact) schedule. Dave was a huge help, and while I know we're both bushed now, it was a very satisfying round of boatwork.
Hours:
Dave 8
Niki 2
Kristian 8.5
Shields Prep Week Update 2
Got another big day in yesterday. Dave and I spent about 6hrs sanding and prepping the boat. Here are a couple photos from the last 3 days.
Niki sanded off the rest of the deck's non skid, and I just think this is a neat photo.
This is the inside of the hull deck joint, located in the (dust cave) front air tank. The tabbing on the left has come loose, and you can see the crack on the right.
Removing the tabbing was generally no fun, but it was made a lot easier by our new Fein Multimaster tool. This tool gives you a very thin saw blade and thin sanders, which made it (relatively) easy to separate the tabbing from the hull. This took about 4 hrs, and would have taken much longer if I had to grind it all off, which would also have been quite clumsy working upside down in the bow.
Once we retabbed and reglued the deck joint, we clamped it using white duct tape. In this photo you can also see the paint removal progress, and the bow repair.
The paint removal went pretty well, especially with Dave and I both sanding it off. There was quite a few layers of paint on there. The photo above shows the topography of the hull: we had two very very thick layers of green paint, a gray primer coat, a layer of blue paint, then the blue gelcoat. We took the boat all the way down to gelcoat to make a good base for the awlgrip primer.
Since were sanding off the boot stripe, we'd need a way to replace it. There is a scribed set of lines on the hull, but I was worried that we'd end up filling that in with primer and filler. Instead I transferred the waterlines down to the bottom paint with a permanent marker and a batten. We may raise the waterline a bit, which will be easy to do using a slightly longer batten for transferring it back.
The bow damage was pretty extensive, and I had to grind a lot of material out to get to undamaged glass. For about 4 hrs, we nearly had a plumb bow! We then made a cardboard mold from inside the boat, which acted as base for laying up new glass.
Dave and I then had the pretty fun job of laying in new glass. We used 4" 18oz biaxial tape to wrap the bow and build up new structure. I like his "ankle wrapping" analogy. We've got a very strong structure up there, as its 5 layers at the tip and top. It's very nice to have a pointy Shields again! Dave is shown here below our handiwork.
Not shown:
The tabbing job on the inside of the hull/deck joint and bulkhead.
Our blue (for now) boat!
Todays going to be: fairing, sanding, pinhole filling with acryl putty and cleanup. When we left yesterday there was a lot of dust in the air that I want to get vacuumed up before people get there and track it everywhere.
Friday Mar 21:
Dave 6 hrs
Kristian 6 hrs
Niki sanded off the rest of the deck's non skid, and I just think this is a neat photo.
This is the inside of the hull deck joint, located in the (dust cave) front air tank. The tabbing on the left has come loose, and you can see the crack on the right.
Removing the tabbing was generally no fun, but it was made a lot easier by our new Fein Multimaster tool. This tool gives you a very thin saw blade and thin sanders, which made it (relatively) easy to separate the tabbing from the hull. This took about 4 hrs, and would have taken much longer if I had to grind it all off, which would also have been quite clumsy working upside down in the bow.
Once we retabbed and reglued the deck joint, we clamped it using white duct tape. In this photo you can also see the paint removal progress, and the bow repair.
The paint removal went pretty well, especially with Dave and I both sanding it off. There was quite a few layers of paint on there. The photo above shows the topography of the hull: we had two very very thick layers of green paint, a gray primer coat, a layer of blue paint, then the blue gelcoat. We took the boat all the way down to gelcoat to make a good base for the awlgrip primer.
Since were sanding off the boot stripe, we'd need a way to replace it. There is a scribed set of lines on the hull, but I was worried that we'd end up filling that in with primer and filler. Instead I transferred the waterlines down to the bottom paint with a permanent marker and a batten. We may raise the waterline a bit, which will be easy to do using a slightly longer batten for transferring it back.
The bow damage was pretty extensive, and I had to grind a lot of material out to get to undamaged glass. For about 4 hrs, we nearly had a plumb bow! We then made a cardboard mold from inside the boat, which acted as base for laying up new glass.
Dave and I then had the pretty fun job of laying in new glass. We used 4" 18oz biaxial tape to wrap the bow and build up new structure. I like his "ankle wrapping" analogy. We've got a very strong structure up there, as its 5 layers at the tip and top. It's very nice to have a pointy Shields again! Dave is shown here below our handiwork.Not shown:
The tabbing job on the inside of the hull/deck joint and bulkhead.
Our blue (for now) boat!
Todays going to be: fairing, sanding, pinhole filling with acryl putty and cleanup. When we left yesterday there was a lot of dust in the air that I want to get vacuumed up before people get there and track it everywhere.
Friday Mar 21:
Dave 6 hrs
Kristian 6 hrs
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Fiberglass/paint prep update
I'll put up photos soon, but it's been a very busy week on Shields 88. We're prepping the boat for primer and paint, and it has to be done by the end of next week. Along the way we've got three major tasks:
Remove old paint from topsides and deck (deck is complete, hull is 50% there)
Fair scrapes/dings in hull, fill and fair old holes in deck (20% complete)
Fix broken nose (bow damage to hull and deck)
In getting ready for the bow repair and hole filling, we made the really alarming discovery the the hull/deck joint for 8' along the stbd bow had failed, and the deck was loose from the hull. This wasn't noticed before as it was barely hanging on, and only loosened once we drilled a few holes out for filling.
As far as I can tell this was caused by a) poor prep on original tabbing b)sloppy repair some years ago c)previous owners collision and subesquent duct tape repair
To repair, we removed several feet of damaged tabbing, and reattached several more where the deck had worked loose from the tabbing. There are some good photos of Niki and I prepping for this, using my new favorite tool (Fein Multimaster)
Today Dave and I spent the whole day on the boat. First we reattached the deck to the tabbing using 404 adhesive filler and epoxy. Then we remade the missing tabbing using 3 layers of 17oz biaxial tape. Both of these repairs went just fine, and we used a space heater and halogen lamp to warm (hot!) the interior and deck. The tabbing cured in about 3 hrs, so I'm very happy with the new bond.
We also retabbed the front bulkhead, as Chris Craft Shields are notoriously weak in this area. This all went fine, but doing the prep work yesterday involved grinding off the old tabbing which well and truly sucked. Instant white out dust storm in the front tank! Literally couldn't see after only a few seconds grinding. Glad thats done!
We were on a roll so we ended up glassing the bow repair. I'd previously ground off the damaged areas, and with some advice from glass guru Mick, extended the ground area for about 10" aft of the bow. Dave and I then prepped and wrapped the bow with several layers of 17oz biaxial. This went really well and we're ready for fairing, pending a possible second application of glass (unlikely) In the very front, there are 5 layers of 17oz cloth, so it should be a very strong repair, and a good place to anchor the bow chock. It's going to take some grinding to get this to the right Shields shape (I think we're a bit too pointy right now) but thats one big job done.
Tomorrows another all day job, and we're going to finish the paint removal and get a good stretch for the paint prep/sanding done.
Hours:
Niki 4hrs Tuesday 6hrs Wednesday
Kristian 4 Hrs Tuesday, 6hrs Wednesday, 7.5 hrs Thursday
Dave 7.5 Hrs Thursday
Not included but interesting Shields 88 work:
Have delrin mast partner shims
Working with Robert at Carbon Copy Composites on a Carbon Fiber compass mount
fixing mast damage using Shields emblem backing plates (cool!)
Working on Splice Setter (not actually Shields 88 related but a cool project)
Doing actual work, I have 12 open invoices right now, inluding 2 other Shields, 7 furling systems, 1 complete rerig and a pair of match racing boats. This is good, as it helps pay for 88!
Remove old paint from topsides and deck (deck is complete, hull is 50% there)
Fair scrapes/dings in hull, fill and fair old holes in deck (20% complete)
Fix broken nose (bow damage to hull and deck)
In getting ready for the bow repair and hole filling, we made the really alarming discovery the the hull/deck joint for 8' along the stbd bow had failed, and the deck was loose from the hull. This wasn't noticed before as it was barely hanging on, and only loosened once we drilled a few holes out for filling.
As far as I can tell this was caused by a) poor prep on original tabbing b)sloppy repair some years ago c)previous owners collision and subesquent duct tape repair
To repair, we removed several feet of damaged tabbing, and reattached several more where the deck had worked loose from the tabbing. There are some good photos of Niki and I prepping for this, using my new favorite tool (Fein Multimaster)
Today Dave and I spent the whole day on the boat. First we reattached the deck to the tabbing using 404 adhesive filler and epoxy. Then we remade the missing tabbing using 3 layers of 17oz biaxial tape. Both of these repairs went just fine, and we used a space heater and halogen lamp to warm (hot!) the interior and deck. The tabbing cured in about 3 hrs, so I'm very happy with the new bond.
We also retabbed the front bulkhead, as Chris Craft Shields are notoriously weak in this area. This all went fine, but doing the prep work yesterday involved grinding off the old tabbing which well and truly sucked. Instant white out dust storm in the front tank! Literally couldn't see after only a few seconds grinding. Glad thats done!
We were on a roll so we ended up glassing the bow repair. I'd previously ground off the damaged areas, and with some advice from glass guru Mick, extended the ground area for about 10" aft of the bow. Dave and I then prepped and wrapped the bow with several layers of 17oz biaxial. This went really well and we're ready for fairing, pending a possible second application of glass (unlikely) In the very front, there are 5 layers of 17oz cloth, so it should be a very strong repair, and a good place to anchor the bow chock. It's going to take some grinding to get this to the right Shields shape (I think we're a bit too pointy right now) but thats one big job done.
Tomorrows another all day job, and we're going to finish the paint removal and get a good stretch for the paint prep/sanding done.
Hours:
Niki 4hrs Tuesday 6hrs Wednesday
Kristian 4 Hrs Tuesday, 6hrs Wednesday, 7.5 hrs Thursday
Dave 7.5 Hrs Thursday
Not included but interesting Shields 88 work:
Have delrin mast partner shims
Working with Robert at Carbon Copy Composites on a Carbon Fiber compass mount
fixing mast damage using Shields emblem backing plates (cool!)
Working on Splice Setter (not actually Shields 88 related but a cool project)
Doing actual work, I have 12 open invoices right now, inluding 2 other Shields, 7 furling systems, 1 complete rerig and a pair of match racing boats. This is good, as it helps pay for 88!
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Paint Prep
Haven't had enough time for our boat lately, but spent a couple hours last week prepping the topsides for paint.
The best way to do it seems to be to scrape off the layers of old paint, then clean up the scrapes and remaining paint with 50 grit on the DA, followed with 80 for paint prep. Will try and get a nother day of prep in this week.
Scrape and Sand 8hrs
The best way to do it seems to be to scrape off the layers of old paint, then clean up the scrapes and remaining paint with 50 grit on the DA, followed with 80 for paint prep. Will try and get a nother day of prep in this week.
Scrape and Sand 8hrs
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