Topsides | Paint Stripping

With the cockpit stripped of paint it was time to start on the topsides, cabin and forward deck well.

I started with the the forward deck itself. Here it is half stripped.

I am using a small, circular Bahco scraper to clean up the fillets.

Here the port Dorade box and the deck well have been stripped and the cabin wall is half stripped.

Before I started on the cabin roof and the companionway hood I covered the entrance to the cabin to prevent splashes of paint stripper. Like this.

In this pic the port cabin roof is half stripped.

I taped over the portholes in case stripper got into the cabin and spoiled my paint job!

This is the forward deck well, fully stripped.

The mirror is useful for seeing under the rails, and inside the upper breast hook. Like this.

At last I finished stripping the port side of the upper hull, like this.

I then moved on to the starboard topsides, as here.

You can see the patches that I made to fill the holes for the ventilators which I cut in the wrong place. Oops.

This will at least give me an opportunity to properly fair the patches, which are far from flat and even...

Finally the whole of the upper hull was stripped. Here it is seen from astern.

This is the forward deck well.

And lastly here is a view of the starboard topsides.

I will now have to strip inside the companionway hood and the seatback lockers, neither of which will be easy. I am not looking forward to that, but afterwards we will be preparing for new paint. Which will be wonderful!

We are making progress, albeit slow.