Keel cable and more finish work

As I get further into the detail work, I find I have less and less things to show that demonstrate dramatic improvements in the project. Still, for the sake of completeness and to show I’m not slacking off entirely, I’ll include this minutia work that I’m engaged in.

In the forward birth, I have several things that need attention. The first in the port-a-pottie platform. When I completed the glass-in work, I did not carefully inspect the area for neatness. In this pic I’ve gone back over the entire area to smooth out the largest bumps and grooves. You can’t really see a significant differences from this pic, but if you run your hand over the various edges you will no longer come away missing skin.

Of course, I need to repaint ....again.  yay.

I also attacked the backside of the SB wall tht sits just under the mast.  You can see where I did not clean-up the epoxy work.  Getting at these inside joints is a pain.   Anyone doing this work should think ahead and try to sand just after the epoxy hardens to knock down the high points easier.  Since no one except the sleeper will ever take time to carefully look at this particular seam, my shoddy work will likely go unnoticed for the most part.

 Just below this wall is some storage.   As with any fabrication work, and lacking something to go by, I had to figure out what Clipper was trying to do with this area. I had to build it so that there was enough room to step over the threshold, but maximize storage capacity.  This space has a removable lid which a realized needed some suppports to hold it firm should anyone put weight on the 1/2" thick cover.  Here I've installed two boards to give the lid support on all four edges.  The underside of the lid also has a lip to ensure it can't slide from it resting place.  I could have installed hinges, but decided not to.

Here you can see the lid in place.  The holes are there to help you pick up the lid.  I'm in denial that I really should sand this whole area down again and repaint.   I despise fiberglass dust.  Not matter if I wear an environment suite, it still finds a way to keep me itching for hours.

The next area of concern is the swing keel.  I know that my old cable as reliable as a dog watching a hamburger.   It was just a matter of time before it let me down in a big way, so it had to go.  After pulling the crank from underside of the aft seat, I unstrung it from the spool. As you can see here, it was a collection of kinks and frays waiting to check out while on the water.

This is the orginal crank.  It looks like crap, but it still works fine.  I did not see the need to spend another $50 getting a new one.

While I was cleaning this whole arrangement, I decided to clean up the aluminum support plate the crank hung from. I started to grind off the oxidation before I realized a before pic would be nice.

 

I took the liberty of grinding down the edges to make it a little more friendly and put a fresh coat of paint to pretty it up a bit further.



It will never look good, but at least I can make it look less ugly.

After a trip to the hardware store to get a matching length of stainless steel I rewound it back on the spool, bolted the clean-up plate and crank back into it’s factory-placed location, snaked the dirty end of the cable through the cable hole and replaced the eyebolt.   In this instance I am fortunate that my Clipper rides much higher on the trailer than it really needs to.  It’s a pain to launch, but it made things very easy when swapping out the keel cable.  I only had to jack the boat up a foot to get at the connection point.  From there, I mashed on an eye hole (or whatever this connector thing is called), and reassembled everything.   The entire job took about 90 minutes, with painting and all.

Next I'm thinking about taking on the final finish work in the forward berth.  That out of the way, I can refocus my effort on the exterior.....maybe I'll do some carpet on the walls, too.  Who knows.