Moving The Boat | She's Back Inside!

I felt that the boat should be moved back into the workshop as soon as possible, before the weather turns too cold and wet for it to be enjoyable.

A crew of friends and family was assembled and a date was set. The move was scheduled for 1300 on Sunday 19th November.

The (by now) usual bribes of homemade pizza, cakes and biscuits, and bottles of beer were dished out.

Not much beer was consumed but everything else was devoured, as if by a plague of hungry locusts!

Here is the boat back inside and upside down again, seen from the side.

The manual says something about hoping that's the last time you see your boat the wrong way up when you flip it upright again.

Well, I've seen it upside down twice now and it hasn't even touched water!

Here she is, seen from astern.

This is one side of the rear dolly.

I had to raise the height of the front dolly and reinforce it, because I had measured incorrectly. This is what it now looks like.

I was relieved to have the boat back inside, although not looking forward to all the prep and painting that now lies ahead.

Finishing The New Tiller

Like the acrylic drop boards, making the second tiller was a fun project.

I had previously varnished it and when it was nice and hard I wet sanded and polished it to a smooth and shiny finish.

This is it.

It's going to be a while before that gets deployed, but it's done and I enjoyed making it.

Drop Boards | Making Acrylic Boards

While getting ready to move the boat (again) I decided to make the acrylic drop boards that came with the kit.

I thought it would be fun and might distract me from thinking about repainting the boat.

I had already made a flange for the upper drop board from Sapele.

Here I am polishing it after wet sanding to get a nice smooth and shiny finish.

I removed the protective covering from the board and masked it off for the transparent caulking compound, and fitted the flange with the board in the vice. Like this.

That was straightforward and looked very nice.

I used M4 pan head machine screws and domed nuts, as on the drop board retainers on the companionway.

I used a steel rule to make sure that screw heads lined up nicely, as here.

I waited for the caulk to cure and then made a test fit.

Here are the boards with the slide closed.

And here they are with the slide open.

They look really good! I enjoyed that.

Moving The Boat | Making New Dollies

The boat will need to be supported when upside down in the garage, so a pair of dollies is required.

I didn't need to think too hard about how to do this, having already done it once.

I used the same measurements and used the mitre saw to cut some inexpensive but strong studding to length. Like this.

It didn't take too long to make them, and I fitted some braked casters so the boat can be easily moved around.

Here they are.

As before a stout vertical timber post takes the compression load at the stern on each side, and a strong plastic bucket is fixed over it to keep it upright.

Onwards and upwards.

Paint Blisters Update (2)

In the previous post I said that the expert from TeaMac told me that the blisters are being caused by microscopic air pockets which I introduced to the paint when using a soft foam roller and brush to roll on and tip out the paint.

He may well be right, but a friend who is a professional painter and decorator has told me that blisters are usually caused by water. He asked if moisture could be coming out of the wood. That isn't possible of course. The marine ply is encased in fibreglass cloth and epoxy resin. But I do remember painting the boat during the winter, when I suppose dampness could have been a problem.

And I have been thinking about what else I might have done to cause the problem.

It only happens to the white paint, and it occurs all over the boat. So it is something which I have consistently done regardless of season, temperature and humidity.

One of the things Andy from TeaMac told me was that I should be using their own Thinners 14 to clean brushes and rollers. This is it.

I didn't. I used inexpensive brush cleaner from the DIY store. Here it is.

Even worse, I reused it after the paint had settled to the bottom over night … so I am thinking that this might have contaminated the foam brushes very slightly, and something in the white paint could have reacted to it.

So there we have it. One expert says it's air. Another says it's water. And now I think it could be solvent.

It could of course be all three.

The only thing we can be sure about is that we don't know. Not for the first time!