Decals

Having finally gotten a coat of hull paint I was satisfied with a few weeks ago, I took advantage of a bit of warmer weather Friday to put the decals on. I used the official authorized reproduction decals from Magic Brush; they look really good although it was a bit of a challenge getting the stripes straight. Not looking forward to bottom paint but I have to do that eventually.

Miscellaneous Updates

Over Thanksgiving week I got a few things done - repaired some gelcoat cracks in the bilge, sanded and cleaned the cabin floor, and got a coat of primer on it. Made a wood back for the stern light (it's supposed to sit on a disc of mahogany that's sort of wedge-shaped so as to angle the light properly) and installed that. And mainly, finished sanding and started finish coats on the anchor locker cover and the seats. I still need to find a piece of mahogany to replace the missing board, but I cut a temporary replacement out of a piece of cedar picket I had lying around; it'll do as a stop gap and when I find the real board it can then be used as a pattern. Also made a list of what else needs to be done, and it's still depressingly long. Oh well.

Seats, Revisited

A couple of weeks ago I met up with Ben, down in Galveston, who used to be a 6.2 owner until Hurricane Ike crushed its hull. Amazingly, Ben was able to salvage a bunch of stuff from the boat, so I was able to get some needed pieces as well as some spares. The most amazing thing was that he still had the original mahogany seats, in good condition, because they'd been taken off and stored in his garage because he planned to refinish them. I was able to talk him into parting with those, which are a great deal nicer (although less thick) than the ones that came with my boat. Here's a side by side photo so you can get the idea. The one on the left is an original one - note the gaps between boards, and the more detailed shaping, especially of that inside board.

I've been working on putting the hardware back on; it's nearly done except for the gudgeons and rear stays; I want to replace those bolts so need to make it down to West Marine before doing those. I had to redo the transom because of some runs, so I sanded and repainted it, and it came out looking so much better that I'll probably do the same for the rest of the hull. This time I sanded fairly aggressively so got out all the paint brush marks from the first coat. The trick is that if you have any drag at all, it isn't thin enough, and I didn't know that for the first coat. I should do the topside again too, but since the hardware is all back on I won't - and anyway, I did a better job on it, and for the most part it looks really good. I also got all the wood on around the companionway, and it does look rather nice. I'll try to remember to post a photo of that sometime.

More Paint

This afternoon I managed to get another coat of paint put on both topside and hull. That leaves just the non-skid areas to do, hopefully I can get a coat on them tomorrow. I did have a couple of bad runs on the transom that should be sanded and repainted, and I guess I really ought to put a second coat on the rudder sometime. The cockpit floor looks pretty good - I had drilled lots of little holes in it, then used a shop vacuum to pull out all the water that I could. After that I injected penetrating epoxy into the holes and then put a bunch of old car batteries on it to provide pressure while the epoxy cured. Finally, I closed the holes with Marine-Tex. The result isn't totally flat, but at least it feels solid! That was last week; today I primed and then painted it; it will get a coat of non-skid paint next. I should have stripped more of the old paint but it's really hard on that textured surface; probably by the time I get the coat of non-skid it won't matter anyway. Sorry about the photo - it was nearly dark by the time I thought to take one. Notice the elm leaf - dark spot top center of the photo. Hopefully that area of paint was cured by then. At least it's under the seat where it won't show.

Cockpit Floor

The epoxy repair of the cracks and chips in the cockpit is done and looks solid. It also looks pretty good with paint on it; sanding all that was not that much fun. I still need to remove the cockpit drains and seal around those, but I think that's more easily done from below when I strip the bottom paint. I drilled a few holes in the cockpit floor (along the lines of what is described in the now-defunct bwharpoon.com site), and I'm still getting a wee bit of water out of them. I think I'll try once more in the morning to suck what I can out with the shop vac, and then will seal those with epoxy. I have some penetrating epoxy that I can inject thru the holes which hopefully will seal everything up - at least, once those holes are shut, no more water should get in since I've taken care of all the cracks and unsealed holes in the hull - just need to rebed the hardware. The cockpit floor is the only part not yet painted. Will use some non-skid on it.

Topside Painted, Finally

We've had a beautiful weekend, which thankfully was free of other obligations, so I was able to finish paint prep, and get a coat of primer and one coat of topside paint on her. It came out looking pretty good so far, although I think I will probably try to put one more coat on. The weather was pleasant, but I had a few little black bugs commit suicide by landing on sticky paint. Will have a bit of touch-up to do from that. Also the elm tree next to the boat is just about to start shedding leaves. Forecast is for rain on Tuesday so probably I won't get another coat on just yet; we'll see what the weather brings next week.

Topside Paint Prep

I've got all the hardware off, holes filled, and am ready for topside paint as soon as I finish dealing with the cracks in the cockpit area.