Sailboat sanding and priming continues

A proper paint job is all about surface preparation; the actual painting takes just a couple of hours but the preparation can take weeks. And if you don't prepare the surface correctly, your lovely paint job will be ruined - you'll have to scrape it all off and start over again. Aside from the time and labor required, primer costs more than a hundred dollars per gallon, and paint is about $80/quart - so a screw-up from lack of attention or cutting corners can be expensive.

After sanding off the old paint, I washed down the topside and deck/cockpit surfaces with Tide detergent applied with a deck wash brush, followed with a thorough rinse using a high-pressure washer, and then wiped it all down with alcohol applied with multiple clean paint rags. The goal was to remove any surface contamination that could interfere with the primer bonding properly to the surface.

Awlgrip Hullgard Extra primer applied to deck and cabin top

Some people use acetone to wipe down the surfaces prior to priming or painting, however acetone evaporates far too fast on a hot, sun-baked hull, so I use alcohol instead. You have to use multiple clean rags too, otherwise you'll end up just spreading the contamination around instead of removing it. Also, there can be no moisture (dew) on the surface prior to applying the primer and paint, and don't touch the surface with your bare hands either since that will transfer sweat and skin oils to the surface, which will require another alcohol wipe-down.

Patched and faired, ready for Highbuild primer

Then I applied Awlgrip Hullgard Extra primer to the topsides and deck/cockpit, using 9" Glasskoter 1/8-nap roller sleeves. Hullgard Extra is a bonding primer, intended to be used before fairing. It contains extra epoxy, to make sure it binds well to the surface it is applied to. One gallon was just barely enough for 2 coats on the cockpit/deck. For the topsides, one gallon was enough for 3 coats per each side, and just barely enough for 2 coats on the stern and one coat on the rub rails.  So that added up to three gallons of Hullgard Extra in total.

Two thick coats of Highbuild Primer, somewhat tan-colored

I panicked for a few hours because the Hullgard Extra had not really hardened after 24 hours. You could still put a dent in it with a fingernail. I was convinced I had screwed up the mixture ratio. Hullgard Extra comes in a gallon base plus a quart converter. According to the Hullgard Extra technical data sheet, the mixture was supposed to be 10:1.5.  I just poured the converter into the gallon can and mixed them up with a paint paddle attached to a drill, without a second thought to the proper mixture ratio, assuming that the converter/base kit arrived pre-measured for the proper ratio.

But when the primer had not hardened, I assumed that it was because my quart-to-gallon mixture was of course quite wrong. There are 4 quarts to a gallon, so I thought my mixture was 1-to-4 instead of 1.5-to-10. I started planning on scraping off the entire coating though it just didn't make sense to me that Awlgrip would sell so much more converter than necessary per gallon of base. I re-read the labels on the cans more carefully: while the converter can boldly states to be "One US Quart" it also said (in parenthesis) "1.05PT/.493LT". In other words the "One US Quart" converter was actually about half that amount. Similarly, the "One US Gallon" base was actually "3.785Le" ("Le" meaning liters, apparently). So the mixture ratio was correct after all, straight out of the cans. Awlgrip really needs to do a better job labeling the volumes of its product contents.

Spray-on guide coat

Anyway after 36 hours, the Hullgard Extra was hard enough to be sanded with 150 grit. That took one day per side, and two days for the deck/cockpit due to all the inside corners and details that had to be hand-sanded.

Fairing was next. The topsides came out quite fair; the problem areas were mostly around the area where the rub rails were located. I lightly filled-in those problem area with 3M Premium Filler and sanded it all smooth. I wasn't as concerned about fairing the deck because the anti-skid paint will hide most of that; I paid more attention to fairing the cabin sides and vertical surfaces of the cockpit which will not be covered with anti-skid.  There were a few pinholes and  other areas where I had sanded through the Hullgard that need some attention. Fairing only took a couple of hours in total.

I then applied two coats of Awlgrip Highbuild primer to the topsides and sanded that down with 150 grit. The Highbuild Primer was supposed to be white but it actually came out a little tan. That was actually a good thing because the contrast with the underlying white Hullgard shows the few spots where I had burned through the Highbuild by sanding too much. A two-gallon kit of Highbuild was enough for 3 coats on each side on the topsides.

I am now waiting for the delivery of some more Highbuild to prime the deck/cockpit. I plan on applying three coats for the vertical areas that will remain smooth with no anti-skid applied, and 1 or possibly 2 coats on the rest of the areas.

This whole process of removing the old paint and priming has taken about a month of sanding. Needless to say I am getting sick and tired of it. I am using a 5" Makita random orbital sander on the vertical surfaces because it is much lighter than the 6" Bosch, which I use on horizontal surfaces. I've figured out that the sanding process goes faster if you change the sanding discs quite often instead of trying to force a dull paper to last longer. Inevitably that leads to leaving scuff marks that will need to be faired.

Sanding off stipple marks

Approaching the sanding process in a systematic, section-by-section method also helps, so I broke up the areas to be sanded into approx. 4' square sections and used 2-3 discs per section. Guide coat is useful to show your progress, it helps keep track of the areas that still need to be sanded versus areas that have already been sanded. The goal was first to remove the stipple-marks left from the roller, then to go over the entire area to make it as smooth as possible. Guide coat also shows any major indentations that require more attention but I'm relying on the Highbuild to take care of most of the lighter indentations and smaller pinholes. I used the SEM spray-on variety of guide coat, but later switched to Mirka powder form. It is hard to get an even coating using the spray type because I am not working in an interior space protected from wind which blows away the spray. A little of the powder guide coat goes a long way, but dropping it causes an unholy mess.

Had fun scaring my cats with my dust mask

Once the Highbuild primer is applied to the deck/cockpit, and sanded down, I will apply the 545 finish primer and sand that down with 220 grit to 320 grit, Then, I will start the painting process. Hopefully that will be by next week, weather permitting. I expect the application of the KiwiGrip non-skid to take a couple more days, and so painting should be done by mid-August, at which time I will start on rewiring the mast, installing the stanchions, painting the locker lids and companion way hatch, and installing teak over the coamings. I will also be redoing the standing rigging in August, using Hayn fittings. Winches, cleats and other deck fittings will be installed after the mast is raised, about the time the boat goes into the water, which hopefully will be by the end of November.

Sanding off the old topsides paint and saving the boot stripe

I expected that sanding the old paint off the boat's topsides was going to be a pain. It took more than a week. I used 60-grit 6-inch sandpaper on a Bosch random orbital sander with a soft backing pad, attached to a shop vacuum. The paint was in bad shape; chalky, cracking and flaking off. Along the way I saw some repair patches where the boat had taken some bumps. I guess that the paint had been patched there too. The gel coat under the paint was still in acceptable shape - it was crazed but not cracked or falling apart, so thankfully I didn't need to sand off the gel coat too.

Since the waterline was going to be sanded away, I put some notches on the hull to mark the location of the top and bottom of the boot stripe for future reference, to paint it back with its original shape and location. Laser marks can be used to strike a straight boot stripe but boot stripes are not supposed to be perfectly straight; they're supposed to have some shear (widen, and rise up at the bow and under the counter-stern) to prevent the boat from appearing as if it is "hogging". There is no easy way to do that, except by eye-balling it, so using notches to keep track of the location of the boot stripe and waterline is the best option.

Salvaging the rubrails

My sailboat has wooden (red oak? definitely not teak) rub rails which were in bad shape and which had to be removed for the paint job. It took some effort to take them off in one piece. My goal was to try to salvage them since making new 35-foot rub rails and steam-bending them to shape was going to take a lot of time and effort.

Each rub rail actually consists of two long pieces of wood. The first was bolted onto the hull side, and the second one was glued and screwed onto that piece. (The glue holding the two parts had failed along the way in most places.) The bolt heads holding the rub rail to the hull sides were hidden underneath the second piece of wood, and the nuts were glassed-over on the inside on the hull in inaccessible places. Getting to the bolts without further damaging the rub rails was going to be difficult, but luckily the sealant used between the rub rails and hull was damaged enough that I was able to run a hacksaw blade under the rub rails to cut through the bolts holding them in place. I didn't bother trying to dig out the fasteners; I just ground them back flush with the hull.

I was able to remove the rub rails largely intact though the wood cracked in a few places along the way. I sanded the rub rails to remove the old paint and sealant, scarfed-in some patches to replace the cracked portions, epoxied the two parts together where separated, and then primed them in preparation for painting. I plan on painting them the same color as the rest of the boat.

Old boat name

While sanding the paint off the transom, I found a faint outline of the original name of the boat: Tingueby, homeport: Chicago.

Since that's a pretty unique name, I was able to identify it online as once having belonged to MF Sasgen. Interestingly, the Coast Guard records say that the boat was built in 1968, though my title says it was built in 1967.

Matthais F Sasgen Jr. was associated with the Sasgen Derrick Company in Chicago, (I'm guessing based solely on the name similarity.) He passed away in 2006 but his wife apparently lives near Port Lucie, where the boat was originally for sale. Other relatives apparently live in St. Augustine too. I sent Mrs. Sasgen a message on Facebook, asking about the boat history, -- when and where it was purchased, what color it was originally etc. -- but I have not yet received any reply. It would be nice to know about the boat a big more, like about the little love note, "MJ hearts Cappy" I found written inside the power distribution panel, or the "Glued in 1978" written in pencil under one of the drawers in the galley.

Preparing to sand the topsides: Sanding and scaffolding

Around the beginning of June, and after priming the deck top, I started getting ready to paint the topsides (that's the sides of the boat, above the waterline.)

First, I removed the skin fittings and the exhaust port and sealed up the hole, and then I built scaffolding to stand on while sanding the old and cracked blue paint off  the topsides. The old paint had started cracking and peeling off long ago, so there was no saving it. I had decided to go with a lighter color, which would be cooler in the tropics too.

The exhaust port was a fiberglass pipe built through the lazarette; removing it was simply a matter of using my oscillating tool to cut it off (I prefer to use an oscillating tool over an angle-grinder with a cut-off disc because it distributes much less dust and is much less dangerous.) Then, I cut several pieces of 1708 fiberglass mat (which combines woven roving and chopped-strand mat) to cover the hole, applied it with epoxy, covered it with a piece of plastic to minimize moisture exposure, and after it cured, I sanded it all down & faired over it with 3M Premium Filler. (The old exhaust port diameter was quite a bit smaller than the 2" dia. exhaust hose attached to it. I will be re-routing the exhaust and installing a new, larger exhaust port after I install the below-deck Raymarine autopilot.)

Then I spent some time making some pretty solid saw-horses (or trestles) to support scaffolding planks around the boat. I needed a pretty solid footing since I was going to be spending a lot of time and effort sanding off the old paint. I also hung tarps off the deck since needed some shade to work under to minimize the heat, not just for my comfort but also to allow paint to flow and spread evenly
 before drying. (Needless to say summer in Florida is not the best time to paint, but my options were limited.)

Also the "trick" to painting a boat with a roller is that it has to be done in one smooth go per side, with no stopping or slowing down along the way and no going back to re-paint a patch that you already covered, in order to maintain the 'wet edge' of the applied paint. If the paint is allowed to dry on one patch before rolling paint over the next adjacent patch, you'll see a line in the finish between the two patches. This means that you have to have a pretty solid structure to work on, with no chance of you or your paint cans and supplies falling off the scaffolding along the way as you move along at a pretty rapid pace.

A dusty breakfast

Priming the deck, cockpit, and cabin top

Around the end of May I primed the deck, cockpit and cabin top with Alwgrip Hullgard Extra. It was very hot so I did a bit of a rushed sloppy job of it but I figure most of it will be sanded off anyway. The white surface made a big difference in the temperature of the deck -- no more burning my foot soles when walking around

Boat cats

Sasha and Pasha are enjoying the boatyard and all the creepy-crawlies they can catch. I have to put separate fans near their favorite sleeping spots to keep them cool in the 98 degree heat and 90 percent humidity of a summer in Florida. For some reason Pasha loves to sleep on my computer bag.

Foredeck and aft hatch lids installed

My foredeck hatch blew off in Hurricane Irma in Sept. 2017. That was the second hurricane in 2 years I experienced in St. Augustine - the other was Matthew. When I first bought the boat, the dealer reminded me that there had been no hurricanes there in 60+ years. Well, we got hit by two in a row, but luckily they had both been reduced in strength a bit by the time they blew by us.

Newly-built exterior hatch frame

 I had been working on the deck so I had removed the hinges and lock on the hatch lid, so I put my old manual windlass on the lid to keep it shut through the storm. However due to the camber of the hatch lid and the force of the wind, the windlass gradually "walked" off the lid and fell off. I was laying down on the v-berth cushion at the time and watched as the hatch blew straight up into the air. It fell into the floodwater and floated away (we had about 2 feet of flooding in my part of the boatyard).  I didn't want to go after it because there were all sorts of sharp, pointy things flying through the air. The funny thing is that barely any rainwater got into the boat because the rain was traveling horizontally.

New v-berth hatch with frame trim piece; lotsa light in the v-berth

I decided to replace the hatch with a Lewmar Ocean 60, to get more light over the v-berth. While I was at it, I also put a Lewmar Low Profile 20 over the head as I previously wrote, and a Lewmar Ocean 40 under the boom. I had decided to install them before painting the cabin top because I didn't want to have three large holes in the ceiling while working on the boat.

Those two went in rather easily, since they required me to only cut a new opening (for the head) or slightly enlarge the existing hole for the aft hatch.

Cutting off the aft hatch frame.

The Lewmar 40 fit easily into the slightly enlarge aft hatch hole

Butyl sealer under the hatch, to be scraped off later

Installing the fore hatch was a bigger project because I had to make the existing hole slightly smaller (by about an inch all around) and build-up the rim to take the screws for the hatch. Down below, the hatch rim had to also be faired and straightened so that the ceiling camber didn't cause an unsightly gap with the frame trim piece (the hatch frame trim piece has a bug-screen which is handy.) 

I used vinyl exterior trim pieces purchased from a local hardware store along with epoxy filler to build-up the rim above and below, then spent hours sanding and shaping it. Lewmar Ocean hatches have a pretty high profile so I had to reduce the height of the rim a bit, so the whole thing wasn't sticking up too high like a turret. I brushed just one coat of gel coat beneath the rim to seal it, and didn't bother sanding it smooth because it was all going to be hidden under the hatch frame trim piece anyway.

While doing all this I noticed a suspicious, weeping bump on the deck near the hatch rim that turned out to be a small patch of rot, which had to be dug out and repaired. No big deal.

After that it was just a matter of making sure the hatch rim top was as flat as possible to minimize chances of water intrusion, and then screwing down the hatch frame using some butyl sealer and one-inch #10 screws.

Insulating the v-berth

This is one of those "might as well" projects since I'm already working on insulating the starboard cabin side and the fore hatch over the v-berth. The hull interior was covered with some sort metallic sheeting with plastic backing, which came off easily enough. The insulating material I used as 3/4" closed cell foam on the cabin sides, and I used 1/2" camping sleeping foam pads with mylar on one side to go under the horizontal surfaces. It was all then covered-up with cedar closet liner boards that I stained a pretty dark color (to help sleeping) and protected with some coats of lacquer (easier to apply than epoxy or varnish especially in hot and humid weather.)

Boatyard wildlife and racoon-feeding

I have had an on-going battle with racoons that regularly raid my food stash. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! I swear if they weren't so cute, they'd be a coat and hat by now...

We also have lots of lizards, and also spiders -- big ones! The black widows are cool, with their fat glossy abdomens with the red hour glass mark, but the wolf spiders are really cook because they're about 2 inches, hairy and fast (and harmless)

There are also lots of other creepy-crawlies around: GIANT cockroaches, grasshoppers, velvet ants, lots of fire ants (whose bites leave itchy red welts) plus the no-see'ums that force me to stop working in the late afternoon (neem oil does a good job driving them away but a few manage to get their bites in, leaving very itchy and persistent welts)

I am looking for a Golden Orb Weaver spider as a pet but this Mable Orchard Orb Weaver that was in my work tent was also quite interesting (Leucauge argyrobapta - "dipped in silver")

Removing the heat exchanger zinc

I have a Beta Marine 38 HP diesel motor. I removed the heat exchanger zinc and found out that it was worn down to the nub! Not good, because that means there may be galvanic damage to the heat exchanger.

I plan to remove and clean the heat exchanger, have the injectors cleaned, and do pressure and compression tests on the engine but I don't think it is necessary to rebuild the engine -- at least not this year. She ran fine when I bought the boat, no issues, so other than standard maintenance (change oil and transmission fluid, and replace the water pump impeller) I don't think much more work will be necessary on the engine.

The only real problem with the motor is that the built-in oil change pump had been hanging in the bilge so there's a bit of rust around the pump handle which I am going to address later. Not a priority now. I bought some extra zincs for now and extra oil filters, air filters, etc. I will also be replacing the fuel filter with the Racor dual-filter arrangement (with the metal heat deflectors as required by the ABYC).

Sick kitty!

Had to take Pasha to the vet to remove a golf-ball sized lump from around his chest area which thankfully was not cancerous. He was on painkillers for a while but honestly other than sleeping a bit more than usual, he didn't seem fazed by any of it.

Passing storms

Can't really do much with weather like this but good to see the scuppers draining well...

Catching up with some posts

I had guests over and had to stop work on the boat for a while but now I'm back on track.

The goal is to splash the boat by mid- to late-November and have a shakedown cruise by the end of January 2020.