October 17, 2015
It has been awhile that I have had a full day to work on the boat, so after a relaxing morning I got right to the day's tasks. I had prepared the topsides in the last few days with final sanding and taping off the waterline, so I was essentially ready to go today. My first order of business was to mix the Interlux PrimeKote at a 3:1 ratio of Part A to Part B, and then set aside for the 20-minute induction period.
During the 20-minute induction period, I made my way over to the boat for a final solvent wipe down - using AlexSeal's degreaser. Keeping a clean rag as I moved around the boat, I removed any residual sanding dust and any other potential contaminate on the surface the topsides.
Painting was straight forward. After thinning the PrimeKote with Interlux's brushing thinner 2333N, I applied the primer with a solvent-stable foam roller. I've had great success using the foam roller both in primer applications as well as topcoat applications. With topcoat paint it becomes a bit trickier to find the right thinning ratio to allow the paint to law down nicely, but after a few coats I manage to produce great results.
I actually made two passes around the boat. I didn't quite know how much of the primer to mix up in this first application, and ended up mixing 19 ounces of Part A, 6 and 1/3 ounces of Part B and thinned it with 6 ounces of 233N. the ~31 ounces of paint was a bit much and rather than waste the paint, I decided to take a chance on the risk of adhesion issues and went ahead and applied it. There is really no way that the paint was cured, but it did appear dry to touch.
After I had used up the primer, I turned my attention to fabricating more of the brightwork that required replacement. I grabbed one of the boards left over from the material used to fabricate the new coaming boards. Next on the list for new brightwork would be the taffrail and the vertical boards trimming out the companionway. Making sure I could cull the blanks from the particular mahogany board that I set aside, I then ran it through the planer to reduce its thickness to match the original material. Most of the original boards showed signs of severe weathering, sanding, and general neglect. After considering the material lost through years enduring weather and sanding and neglect, I figured 3/4" thickness was the original dimension - I went without that.
After the board was to the thickness required, I used the original brightwork pieces as templates to pull the new boards from the mahogany blank.
I then used a jigsaw to remove the new pieces for the companionway trim as well as the taffrail, and then shaped those pieces by hand and through the use of the random orbital sander. There will no doubt be some final shaping required as I go to install the new brightwork, but 95% of the work is now complete on these boards.
I then turned my attention to the coaming return boards. These boards make the return to the cabin sides at the forward end of the coaming boards. These boards also had an original 3/4" thickness, and so I used scrap pieces from the board that I pulled the taffrail and companionway trim pieces from. I traced the shape of the return boards onto the new blanks, and recreated curves and angles to match the original. I cut the new return boards from the blanks with the bandsaw, and finished the boards with mechanical and hand sanding. Again, as mentioned above, there will be some final shaping required as I install the boards.
The coaming boards with their return boards will be mahogany, but I decided to keep the seat trim and aft cockpit trim the original teak. These boards were in great shape, other than having been silvered by being exposed to the elements.
I cleaned the boards up dramatically with sanding, and will treat with varnish prior to reinstallation. It was a good, full day on the boat, and I ended up making great progress toward getting Alva Anne in the water by the end of December.
Total Time: 7.75 Hrs.
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