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Thursday, June 21, 2012

Project Update

So I've been doing a lot of itchy work on NAKIA. Here's a pics of the progress. (Like I used to say when I actually had a job, never confuse activity with progress).


One of the things that I've needed to fix is a big void in the fiberglass on the starboard side of the opening for the bowsprit. After grinding it out (a lot of grinding) I filled it in with fiberglass and epoxy. This is the result after the shape has been roughed back in with a 80 grit grinding disk. Next step is to fill/fair the shape back in.

This is the itchiest job I've done in a long time. The holes for the old samson posts need to be fiberglassed over. So I added plywood core sections and ground the deck fiberglass down to a 12:1 taper. That was a lot of fiberglass grinding! There are five other grinding spots, four for the holes in the deck from the old manual windlass (it was removed in 2002!), the fifth large hole on the upper right is from the chain passage from the manual windlass. These holes were never properly fixed because I didn't want to remove the teak decks to do it. Since the teak deck is gone now, it's a good time to do a good repair.


Here's the deck after the fiberglass has been layered in. Next I'll rough grind it flush to the deck and fill/fair flat.

The rains have started here in Mazatlan. So I've had to move indoors to continue making progress. This is a picture of the interior/underside of the foredeck. This was a lot of grinding too, but not as much as the outside. You can see the plywood core patches from where the samson posts used to be. The three 'bright' spots are the holes for electric windlass foot switches and the hole where the secondary rode goes through the deck.


Here we have the fiberglass, plywood and tubing for the interior support. There will be four layers of glass next to the underside of the hull, then 1/2" plywood, then a single layer of glass (all the glass is bi-axial mat). The green tubes on the right are pieces of PVC electrical conduit that I cut in half lengthwise. This will be used to create fiberglass half-pipes which will stiffen the deck.


This is my 'workstation', also known as the Nav-Table, post fiberglass work. I put plastic down on the floor and walls to protect against dripping epoxy. I wanted to set it up in the head but there wasn't room. Thank God I don't have to sleep on board! Rather than clean all this mess up I just left it for tomorrow when all the sticky stuff should be cured.


Here's a part of the finished result. This was the hardest glass job I've ever done. Keep in mind, you're looking at the underside of the deck, so all this glass had to be placed upside down! It was a lot harder then I thought it was going to be. After the first failure, I realized I had to cut down the pieces of fiberglass into smaller sections so I could keep them under control. I started out with 9 pieces of glass and ended up with 25! I found that I could hold the piece in place with my left hand (while it drooped down around my wrist and forearm) and then use a foam roller to push the edges and corners up onto the underside of the deck. Once one or two corners were stuck I could slide my hand out of the way and use the roller to stick the rest of the piece up.

That's it for now. Hopefully the rain will stop tomorrow and I can rough grind the outside.

John