At the Headwaters

Now this is progress! It’s excellent to do a job that you can see results on.  We had a very sunny October weekend and really went to town. 

I began with the bottom first — a coat of thick silvery Interlux Primocon, an anti-corrosive primer for under-the-waterline metal.  The stuff is thick, and was even thicker with 50 degree weather, but it went on very nicely with brushes and rollers.  The directions recommended three to four coats; we put on two solid coats.  In the last picture, you can see the unfinished spot where the support block was; we lifted up the boat with a 12 ton hydraulic jack, moved the block(s) and painted away. 

Matt came out again, as well as my dad, and we spent most a very nice fall Saturday putting on a coat of West Marine Sea Gloss Pro primer on the metal topsides.  By the end of the day, we had the entire hull primed, and it looked extremely different. 

The next day, dad and I primed most of the fiberglass cabin, and did the first coat of the underside finish with West Marine Bottom Shield Anti-Fouling Paint.  I know there are those that are against mixing paint brands, but they work together fine, and I’ve got no allegiance to one brand or the other. 

The one thing I did notice, however, is that the West Marine website says "drying max before launch:  60 days" which I didn’t see until after I put the paint on . . . oops.  I contacted West Marine, who passed me on to Pettit, who apparently makes the paint.  The rep told me to either 1) put the second coat on it now and sand it before launch to reactivate the compounds or 2) put the second coat on just before launching the boat.  I’m opting for the second as it seems most logical — and easiest. 

Today (Wednesday) I finished priming the cabin, and then continued with the fun part:  painting the topsides of the hull an excellent navy blue with West Marine Sea Gloss Pro.  The paint is very nice; it bleeds together nicely and soaks up any lines, but doesn’t run too much.  The paint is glossy — notice the picture of me below which shows my reflection in the boat; pretty cool!  It is very sticky but not heavy.  My main disappointment was the $12 brush and $6 roller that I bought directly from West Marine for boat painting — they both sucked.  The brush kept losing bristles and the pieces of the roller came off in the paint! 

I tried a few different methods, but what (surprisingly) worked best for me was using a foam roller, and then going directly over it with a foam brush — these didn’t hold a lot of excess paint and made very few lines (and also didn’t come apart in the paint).  Then one to two minutes later I would go back over it and check for runs.  I was painting in 55-65 degree weather.   

The first coat, and part of a second is done.  If the weather holds up, we can complete the second and put a finish coat on the fiberglass.  It may be pushing it to get the trim lines done . . .

The last two weekends were spent scraping, brushing and sandblasting the steel hull of the boat, an unbelievably nasty job.  Up to this point, the dirtiest job had been removing the rust and scale from the bottom of the inside of the hull.  This was basically the same work, except it was done on the underside of the boat, while we sat or laid below it.  Rust, paint, scale and sand rained down, while, to top it off, we worked in unseasonably warm and humid 85 degree weather.  I hated every second of it.

I did finally get my air compressor back from the shop though, so I actually had the tools to do the job.  Even though it’s a small tank, it worked fairly well; I just attached a gun with a hose on the end that goes in a bag of sandblasting material.  I should have used a filter to remove the water from the hose, as well as a coarser grit sand material, but I could find neither.

About 26 man-hours were spend on this task, and during this time I learned the importance of covering up, as the sand material goes everywhere and anywhere.  Even with goggles on it got in my eyes.  In addition, besides the protective quality of a facemask, I also learned that:

1) it is very hard to sing along to favorite songs with this device on and

2) it is important to consider what you eat before you wear the mask; pancakes with syrup is generally okay while beef stroganoff with pickles is a potential killer.

*****

I had to call my buddy Matt out to change the light bulb up on the inside of the roof of the barn — I don’t do too well with heights; anything over twenty feet and my legs turn to jelly.  Mr. Matt doesn’t seem to have any issue with this (he did it the first time as well), so last Wednesday I lured him out with Doritos and Fleet Farm raspberry gummies. 

After that we blew off, vacuumed, swept and generally cleaned all the excess sand and paint chips off and out of the barn.