sunnuntai 24. helmikuuta 2013

Almost there

Had a chance to put six solid hours of work on the bottom and it shows. I got quite a lot scraped and sanded as can be seen from the pic below. Both sides are pretty much done and only those hard to reach places remaining.

Aft to bow
 IT is slightly difficult to scrape the sides around waterline since the position that you need to get to is difficult. The reason is quite simple; snow. As you can see there is about a solid meter of snow on both sides of the boat, bit more on the SB side since there is another boat that sheds it's snow to the same pile.

Old propeller log and grounding plate 
Visible here is the old propeller log (which is not working). Right behind it the black lump is the grounding plate for electrics. I'm thinking of getting rid of the log since it has no use and only creates drag. I'm still torn if I will take the whole log of and patch the bottom, or only take the propeller away... May be the first alternative, if I have enough time.

Old patch job
So far I have found four patch jobs from the boat, which is actually not that much given the boat's age and the fact that the engines have been changed. I'm pretty sure that the patches slightly aft from amidships are old raw water intakes for the old engines (visible here on the upper left corner of the image). I sanded the patches and found that they have been done quite nicely, not perfect but they will hold. They had been painted with a primer. Curiously enough at few places the fiberglass extended over the old ablative paint from the edges, well not any more it's all dust in the wind now...

Not much left 
Not much scraping left anymore, only few square meters to go. In hours I guess that the scraping will take two hours (plus sanding) and then the bottom would be bare. Of course there's still a lot to do but it will be easy and less messy.

Tools of the trade 

These are the basic tools used in this job. A proper scraper with carbide blades (Bahco Ergo) and random orbital sander (Bosch PEX 270 AE). Most of all proper sanding discs. I will never ever sand anything with old sanding discs anymore. I have found that Mirka's Abranet sanding mesh material is supreme to anything else. It will outlast anything and also outperform anything else I have ever tried, so be advised. 

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