Thursday, July 19, 2012

After Burner

This week was just too hot to get much done after coming home from my real job so I wasn't able to complete any single task until today.  Fortunately, it was a bit cooler today and I was able to knock a bunch of things of the list.

I don't know why I didn't do this years ago when I first started (yep, it's been years now), but I finally tackled the removal of the mainsheet traveler.  When I pulled all the hardware off the decks way back in January of some distant past year, I think I assumed that the traveler would be a bear to tackle and just left it because it wasn't really in the way and I didn't plan on doing anything to it.  It became clear the other night as I was beginning to sand around the base that it would have to come off for paint or the job would look sloppy.  So armed with my best contortionist posture and a 10mm socket I hung myself upside down in the rear hatch.  It turned out to be really easy though and I had it off in less than 20 minutes and I didn't loose a single nut to the ever hungry bilge monster.

With that out of the way I was able to finish up sanding around that section and the rest of the bulwark/deck interface as well as the interface around the rear hatch.  There are lots of weird corners and curves that need to be sanded here so it took a fair amount of time.  Then I moved on and hit the top of the bulwark where I had filled all the holes for the old caprail.  I know the picture below looks pretty much the same as the first one, but it is a lot smoother.



By this time is was getting late but I decided to throw down some System Three QuickFair around the edges and a few low spots.  As well as I had sanded the bulwark/deck interface, there was still a little roughness to the touch and I had heard good things about QuickFair.  It's a light 2 part epoxy fairing compound that you mix up on a board (2:1 ratio) and spread it on.  System Three touts that it is sandable in as little as 3 hours so you can get a lot done without the usual multi-day wait time.

Anyway, after wiping the whole aft deck down, I mixed up about a 1/2 cup total on a board and started spreading.  I like it, it is REALLY smooth and spreads very evenly.  I think if I had to do this whole thing over again and I had lots more money (it isn't cheap), I would do more of the fairing with this stuff.  I finished up just as it was getting dark and think I got most of the low spots and ran a full bead around the perimeter at the bulwark/deck interface.  I started out with a spreader cut to the approximate radius of the corner, but ended up using my finger for most of it.  It just seemed to work better that way.  I should have worn gloves, but by the time I was deep into it I didn't want to risk having the stuff kick while I was down below gloving up.  Hopefully it will sand as well as they say it will; I'll be at it tomorrow.

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