Equinox Project | Friday, January 9, 2009

I spent the day wrapping up several of the ongoing projects and pressing onwards on related things.  With a meeting scheduled with the owner on Saturday, I held off beginning some of the remaining hull work, which would require me to completely cover the decks in plastic for the duration, so I concentrated on other areas for now.

I began in the cabin.  Yesterday's satin varnish turned out well, and I removed all the masking tape from the interior trim now that the finish was complete.


         

         


I collected several items that the owner had indicated he'd like to take with him following his visit--the old diesel engine and its panel, some of the electronics, and other items--and then returned to work on the hull.  The previous owner must have docked his boat starboard side-to, since the starboard side of the hull contained a dozen or so (minor) gouges and scrapes in the gelcoat; the port side, meanwhile, contained only two tiny scraped.  After locating all the areas that required attention, I ground and reamed out the areas enough to accept fairing compound, and then filled the areas with Alexseal fine fairing compound.

The centerline seam on the transom, when it had been filled and patched at the factory after assembling the two halves of the hull during initial production, left a vertical depression in the hull, which I decided to fill and fair as well, although it would be hidden behind the rudder when installed.  Giving the fairing compound the entire weekend to cure would ensure it was ready for sanding on Monday.


         


I rinsed off the shop floor to get rid of the remnants of green gelcoat dust that still clung to everything, and straightened up a bit.  Back in the woodshop, the satin varnish that I'd applied on several of the panels yesterday was complete, and I removed these now-complete pieces to another room for safekeeping till the time came for their reinstallation on the boat.  Meantime, I sanded the bulkheads again to prepare them for their third coat of gloss varnish on the second side.

For a couple weeks I'd been working sporadically on the exterior companionway trim.  The pieces were all reassembled now, but I had to sand and smooth some epoxy squeezeout from a couple of the joints, after which I sanded the entire piece to 220 again.  Originally, the exterior portion of the guide rails that hold the swash boards in place had been screwed to the backing pieces, but I'd epoxied these in place during reconstruction.  The old bung holes remained, so I milled new bungs and glued them in place to fill the holes.  Ahead lay wood brightening and varnish.



I wrapped up the day with more varnish on a variety of pieces.


    


Total Time on This Job Today:  7.25 hours

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