December 10, 2017
Prior to the weekend, I had planned to get a second coat of primer on the deck and cockpit...until I saw numerous pinholes that required fill work. Application of a high-build primer may have sufficed, but since it would only add unnecessary expense in my opinion, I took the day to scour the deck and cockpit for those areas needing attention, note them, sand them, vacuum their surfaces, wipe their surfaces down with solvent, and fill them with Microlight 410. But I would get to that later in the day since the temps were in the high forties. I set the epoxy out in the sun to warm up a bit, and carried on with other items.
I took the freshly cut new port coaming board over to Joule to test for fit on the starboard side, to see if I could use this port board as a template for the starboard. The fit was good; I could use the port coaming to template the starboard. The original starboard coaming was increasingly disintegrating with every handling, not to mention a significant portion of the board having succumb to dry-rot
I decided on the portion of the teak stock to use for the coaming board, aligned the port coaming and transferred the dimensions onto the board. I labeled the new starboard coaming and set it aside.
With the same stock board, I decided to remove the new companionway / drop board trim piece. I clamped the original trim piece to the remaining stock, and transferred its dimensions onto the fresh teak.
With the jigsaw, I removed the new starboard companionway / drop board trim piece. Over the next half-hour or so, I continued to fine tune the shape, including routing the rabbet on the underside to accept and secure the drop boards.
With the ambient temps warming up, including the sun-bathing epoxy, I went ahead and filled the areas requiring it. I used the 410 Microlight on the pinholes and small gouges that were not evident prior to the revealing first primer coat. I will get another two coats of primer on the deck and cockpit, and this will serve to fill and fair (through hand sanding) anything I might have missed in addition to these areas.
It looks worse than it was - I promise! I decided to go ahead and skim-coat large areas to allow me to feather in the faired areas with the surrounding surfaces.
Most of the Microlight will come off of these filled areas, promoting great topcoat results.
With work on the hull complete for the day, I resume brightwork fabrication in the wood shop. My next targets to pull from the new teak stock were the cockpit seat trim boards. Running the length of the cockpit seating, and fastened to the inboard vertical surface, the seat trim boards serve to secure cushions when out sailing. The original seat trim was in far better condition that the original coaming boards, but did have dry-rot on the end grain. Like I had previously, I aligned the original piece on the new stock and transferred the dimensions.
I removed the new seat trim board with the jigsaw. I stretched a piece of tape along the cut line to help guide the saw blade. My eyes getting old? I repeated the effort for the port seat trim board as well, and then set them both aside for eventual shaping to final dimensions.
Next, I turned to the taff rail. Rather than creating a joint in the center line of the taff rail to connect two separate pieces, I wanted to remove the taff rail as one contiguous piece. So using the original as a rough guide (it was also in weathered condition), I transferred its dimensions to the teak stock...
...and cut out the new taff rail.
I was debating whether or not to run the roughly cut taff rail through the planer, or first run a section of the new teak stock through the planer and then cut out the taff rail. Alas, it made sense to first cut out the taff rail and then run it through the planer. I made this decision due to the fact that a large area of teak would have been wasted otherwise - the portion of teak adjacent to the concave / forward edge of the rail. Having decided to cut first and then plane would allow me to pull perhaps a couple pieces of trim for the companionway hatch from this area that was adjacent to the concave / forward edge of the rail.
I made several passes through the planer, being careful to keep the roughly cut rail level in order to avoid snipe - a dip that is cut into a planed board because it entered at an angle. In fact, some of the milled teak stock exhibited snipe. Running the roughly cut taff rail through the planer took some focus given the fact that the board naturally wanted to twist due to its shape.
I managed to get the taff rail planed to an appropriate thickness...without snipe! It was good to see the new brightwork begin to emerge.
Total Time Today: 4 hrs