Chapter 13: In Which We Get Blasted
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.
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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.
