Posts in category: Rebuild Elements

As you had probably gathered from our previous post on beginning the paint on the pilot house, that is where a lot of our time (and money) is going at the moment.  Although I’ll catch you up to how that’s going in the next post, I’ll let you know now that the painting and sanding has basically become my job.  Solely. This is because, well, not only does Matt mostly loathe painting, but we’ve found that his hand is just a little too heavy for the sanding that’s needed there.  Every time I put him to work he somehow sands back down to bare metal in too many spots.  We can’t constantly go back and touch up these areas between the multiple barrier and primer coats that are going on, so we’ve found it best just to keep him away from it all together.

The good thing is, this has now freed him up for more projects inside the boat.  And since it was a little disheartening that they had come to a screeching halt for a few days, it felt good to now see things happening on both the inside and the outside.

This is another post where not a whole lot has been accomplished, at least visually, so I’ll only be giving a quick gist until we dive further into this area.  This area being the head, and mostly referring to what will be the composting toilet and our cabinet.  When the toilet is finished I’ll be able to give you a much better run down on how it works and what went into it, but at the moment we’re just starting with a box in which all the components will eventually be placed inside.

The top of the box (and what will be the opening to the toilet) runs from one wall to the other, and where it ends, the bottom of our cabinet will begin.  Using 1/2″ plywood he made the front and the top of the box, while keeping the existing walls as the other sides.  Once we had the shapes of them right, it was time to make the decorative cherry toppers.  The front of the box was very easy as we used 1/4″ cherry plywood, and then cherry hardwood as an outlining trim.

The top of the box however, is made completely from cherry hardwood.  Since all the strength is placed in the plywood though, we decided to get the decorative cherry hardwood to go as far as possible by taking the 1/2″ wide pieces and sawed them in half to a width of 1/4″.  Using wood glue and lots and lots of clamps, we lined up the 2 1/2″ pieces of hardwood until they covered all of the plywood and adhered them together.  This process was followed by lots of cussing, trying not to let gaps form between the boards, but eventually we used enough pressure to get it all to line up properly.

One of the fun and kind of funky things we’re doing with the cherry hardwood in the head, is to use all of our pieces that are showing sapwood.  Originally we were discouraged to have so many pieces that had little white lines and strips running through the cherry, thinking we were going to have to cut those sections out and end up with lots of wasted wood. But then we came up with the idea to put them all together in one space where they would hopefully flow together.  We’re still not sure how it will turn out once it’s varnished and if it was a good decision on our part, although so far it’s looking pretty cool.

The cabinet should come out looking the same as our clothing cabinets in the forward salon, although thank god we were smart enough to save the piece of wood that was the original wall to use as a template. With that one template we were able to transfer it to 2 sheets of eruolite. One will be used as the inside wall to the cabinet, and the other will be the outside wall that will butt up to the counter.  The reason we’re doing 2 is because there is another odd metal frame that we found it easier to encase than to work around like in our clothing cabinets.

The outer wall was adhered to a piece of cherry plywood, so now it is 1/2″ thick and matches the rest of the exterior wood.

The door for the cabinet is made of a mixture of cherry plywood and cherry hardwood, just like our others, and sits inside a cherry hardwood frame.  Now that Matt has made so many tongue and groove pieces, it doesn’t take him very long to saw the necessary slots and piece everything together.

So while I’ve spent my past few days outside in the fresh air, and sometimes sweltering sun, Matt has been making a lot of visible progress down below and it is looking great!  I can’t wait until we have the counter installed and the new sink we just bought from Ikea. Everything is coming together so nicely and it would be fantastic if we could finish one room in this boat!

When I was told we were going to replace the ports (deadlights) on the new boat, I thought ‘Sure, no problem’.  We’d just replaced the hatches, we knew the weather was now right for this kind of undertaking, and the fact that we’d already done it on Serendipity. The thing I was not thinking about, is this project would be infinitely harder on Daze Off.  Not only were we starting with blank sheets of plexiglass where we were expected to trace, cut, and polish the new glass instead of ordering pre-sized and cut pieces, but we also had to first paint the areas that the new glass would be adhering to.  And that was going to be the extremely difficult part.

I’ll go over one of the stages today, but overall they’ll include: removing the old plexiglass; cleaning the surface of the existing adhesive, sanding and grinding off the existing paint until we were down to bare metal; filling unnecessary holes with epoxy (I’ll get further into that); starting with a zinc chromate primer, adding barrier coats; primer coats; top coats, and then we can start the process of actually putting the new plexiglass in.

The part that we tackled today was removing the existing windows on the port side of the boat and cleaning the area.  Since the windows currently have umpteen bolts screwing them into the hull, we worked with one person inside loosening the nuts while the other one sat outside keeping the bolt from spinning.  I feel a little bad for Matt as he was the inside guy, and once he got to the pilot house he found himself in the area where we’re storing not only all the templates we removed from that area when we needed to add foam insulation a few months ago, but also our extra clothes, toiletries, and even non perishable goods we can’t fit in the galley.  Basically its a heaping mess in that area, and trying to move things around to get decent foot space in there is almost a project in itself.

That first step didn’t actually take all that long, but the next one was a doozy.  Removing the caulk on the outside where the windows had been adhered.  Unlike when we cleaned the ports to get the new glass in, this caulk did not stay rubbery and scrape off easily.  It was gooey and messy and was taking up all my patience to clean off an area of 2 square inches.  Using a combination of small chisels and other scraping tools, it felt like I was only moving the substance around instead of actually removing it.  Even with the added help of acetone I was barely able to wipe it off.  Then I thought of trying mineral spirits.  Bingo.  It basically dissolved the old caulk, moving it around a bit, yes, but then the acetone did take up the rest of it.

That job took foreeever, and by the time we were finished my hands were covered in black goop and I was very glad we still had a little Orange Goop around so I could somewhat clean myself up. It wasn’t me who still had the dirty jobs coming up.  Matt now had the fun task of grinding off the paint around the frame so we could then fill all the holes from the bolts with epoxy.  We had both decided that all the extra metal seemed like a little much since with new technology, the bolts aren’t responsible for keeping the port in (we’ll be using a strong tape and caulk), so we’ll go down to only one in each corner for just a little bit of added security.

To make sure that all the dust and debris that was getting scraped off didn’t make it’s way into our immaculate living quarters (ha), I made sure the windows were taped up from the inside. Once the area around the holes were cleaned, Matt made sure to clean the holes out even more, using a drill to grind each one of them and expose fresh aluminum that the epoxy would then adhere to.  I taped up the back of each hole to make sure nothing would leak all the way through once it was applied.

Using a 2 part G Flex epoxy through West Systems, Matt mixed up equal parts and carefully filled each hole.  We weren’t worried about scraping the outside smooth since it will all be sanded flat once its hardened.  And with that, we wait.  Next step will be to take off all the paint from that side and begin priming! But….we also move on to the downside of this whole projects.  No windows.  Looks like there will be lots of tarps, plastic sheets, and tape in our future.

A small but important project has been finished!  We’ve now replaced our hatches with new plexi glass.  And this time, they’re leak proof.

I can’t remember if I had mentioned this in a post this previous summer, if not it was probably because I was too frustrated by the entire thing, but we tried this project in late August and failed.  I should correct that statement a little bit.  Everything that we did was great.  It was the 90 degree temperatures and high humidity that did us in the first time around.

We had spent all morning cleaning and taping the hatch frames, caulking the area, perfectly placing the new plexi glass in, and cleaning the remaining goo that slid off the taped areas.  This was by far the most difficult and time consuming task of the entire project.  I must have bathed every hatch frame, as well as myself, in Acetone that day.  Walking away from it once everything was cleaned up, we were proud of our work and excited that we could finally remove the tarps that had been keeping the inside of the boat water free through the stormy summer.

It wasn’t until we went back a few hours later we found out that due to the incredible heat of the day, the plexi had expanded, pushing out a majority of the caulk we’d sealed it with, and then contracted again leaving gaps where it should have been sealed.  It was honestly a little agonizing to find out that a project we had been so looking forward to completing was all for nothing.  It would have to be done again once temperatures cooled down into the 70’s, just to make sure we didn’t have this mistake happen a second time, and until that point the tarps would have to be thrown back on and the inside of the boat would once more be cloaked in darkness.

Well, after the summer that would.not.end, we’ve finally gotten to a season where we trust that the Dow 795 we’ll be sealing the glass with will actually stay put this time.  First there was the preparation of cleaning off all the old caulk until the point there was nothing left and we had a clean surface for the new stuff to stick to.  Then it was time to go through the process again. So once more I taped the plexi at the edges, taped the hatch frames, and stood at the ready as Matt squirted the black caulk into place.

As we’ve found with a lot of our other projects, it’s always easier the second time around.  We breezed through all the steps and even clean up was only a minor hassle.  Making sure to keep the area shaded, we’d check back every few hours to make sure everything was staying put.  At the end of the day it was so far, so good.

The next day we did a hose test on all the hatches, hitting them full force with water to make sure there were no leaks inside.  With Matt on deck with the hose and me below looking for any drips of water, it appeared as if we were in the clear.  We should know for sure the next time a storm rolls though, but it looks as if we succeeded our second time around.  Let’s hope that’s one of the few projects we have to do more than one round of.

(To replace the old plexiglass we ordered a 4’x8′ sheet of 1/2″ 2064 tint Chemcast plexiglass.  We used the existing glass to trace the shape onto the new glass, and cut the general shape with our jigsaw, using a blade specific for plastics.  To get the edges perfect we used clamps to place the old pattern on top of the new one and Matt attached a trim bit to our router, and ran it around the sheet. This gave us exact replicas of what we needed to replace. Using a 5/16 firstner bit we drilled the necessary holes to attach the hardware that opens and closes the hatches.)

Just one last quick project before my parents come to sweep us off for a week of fun and relaxing in Fort Lauderdale (which I have been looking forward to for a long, long time).  Now that the area for the shower has been installed, epoxied, and painted, it’s time to close that area up with a bulkhead.  The only area in the whole boat that will be able to close itself off.  Future guests, be warned, that’s the only privacy you’ll get. It’s also the only area in the boat that is keeping a wall from the original boat.  It’s the one thing we’re keeping from ‘Daze Off’ other than a few screws that are in reusable condition.

The entire wall for the head isn’t staying, we hadn’t just removed it and set it aside until a later time where we could put it back up.  It’s only the back wall and the corner, which still needed a little work done to it even though it is staying.  For the new portion of the wall running down the hallway fore and aft we used a 3/4″ MDO plywood.  Like most of the others walls in the boat, we routed our v-grooves into the wood, except in this area they’re running vertical instead of horizontal. Once this was done and we had the board cut down to size, we attached it to the existing wall by using epoxy with a light sprinkling of colloidal silica mixed in.  Using a few sets of strategically placed clamps, we let it sit and cure overnight.

Getting the entire wall up was a few day process because of the need for the epoxy to cure and harden.  After the first and largest portion of the wall was in we added the smaller portion closer to the aft end of the boat.  Another night of letting that cure and we were ready to add the much smaller pieces of plywood that will go above and below the door (which will be made much later, out of cherry hardwood and plywood).  During the time these other areas were curing though, Matt had the daunting task of trying to add filler, using the glass bubbles this time, to not only fill the seam of where the existing wall and new wall matched up, but to also perfectly round the corner.  There had been a few small divots that would become extremely noticeable once the wood went from dark brown to white.  Over a few days of sanding and filling though, he was able to get a very smooth and even surface.

Using some of the leftover filler we also filled in a very noticeable mistake made with the router, and also the screw holes so they would not be visible (or even accessible) once the wall was painted.  Two coats of primer later and it was looking pretty good if I say so myself.*

I can not say how good it feels to be back in the world of projects where there is a visible difference at the end of every day.  Having a new wall up in the boat is definitely a visible difference.  I can’t wait to start building up the interior now!  But that will have to wait until we get back from our vacation.