Sunday, February 20, 2011

Clean, sand, paint, sand, wash, paint

The title says it all.  I've spend the last few days working on all aspects of the exterior.  It all had to be cleaned of the largest lumps of dirt, sanded down, primed, resanded, given final wash and then painted with the final coat.

Here's a picture of the cockpit vs. the hull forward.  I have everything taped up that can not be removed.  The hardest part was....well, it all pretty much bit, so there was no real easy part.

In this picture, you'll notice a battery sitting on top.  This was to provide weight to mash down on the poptop.  I had separation that had me worried.  To fix it, I drilled couple shallow holes and injected resin in until it started oozing out the furthest hole.  This proved to be more annoying a task than I estimated.  Just when I thought I had the void filled, seepage sucked it futher into the resesses.   I ended up standing there and drizzling resin into the holes for an hour as it soaked into the wood core.  Its very solid now.


 After painting.  With the proper prep-work, you can get a nice sheen with a roller.   You just have to be patient.
Here's a before shot.   I've cleaned and prepped the entire deck.  Ready for the primer.
 My niece, Kali.   She likes to sail, but gets 'scared' very easily.   Odd thing is that as soon as you get back the dock, she always wants to say on...go figure.
 With all the hardware back on, I decided to add some non-slip paint.  Getting the zones taped off was difficult. I had to use automotice tape to bend around the corners.
 After mixing 1 part non-slip, 1 Part thinner & 2 parts sapphire blue, this is the tentative look of the cockpit.  
I'm really rolling the dice here.  I've never used this stuff before and am going off what others have advised me.   If it ends up looking bad, I'll sandblast it off and start over.

I still need to come back to all the other walk areas and do the same thing.   I hope this works.  It may end up looking very nice and giving me the traction I'm hoping for.

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