Interior Sanding

August 19, 2017

After completing some extended work travel - my 9-to-5 work - I was eager to get back on Joule and continue the restoration work.  The goal for today was to complete the interior sanding, or at least get close to it.  I started by removing the quarter berth and v-berth trim and hatches, labeling them and setting them aside.

The tool for the day was my 5" RO sander, with the vacuum hose connection.  I began the sanding task with the starboard quarter berth, gaining access through the starboard cockpit locker.  

Using 80-grit paper, I made my way from the aft portion of the fiberglass liner to was far forward as I could.  The tool's profile limited my ability to get close to the inboard stringer supporting the cockpit floor, but tight areas like these will be addressed by hand. 

I flipped over to repeat the task on the port side, again gaining access through the cockpit locker.

Coming down below to get access to areas that I could not from above, I also chose to sand the fiberglass roving making up the walls of the cockpit well.  The unfaired roving, shown as a blue-gray, will likely be painted with a product similar to Interlux Bilgekote.  These areas of unfaired glass work, essentially every surface that is NOT part of the fiberglass liner, will be painted with this Bilgekote product.

Next, I worked in a counterclockwise fashion tackling the balance of the interior and overhead.  I adjusted the vacuum hoses and power cords to get going on the forward section of the starboard quarter berth. The red surfaces shown in the photo appears to be some sort of fairing compound spread on top of fiberglass patches.   In fact, there appeared to be two or three separate fairing or filling materials applied to these patches surfaces. 

The photo below reveals areas on the liner that received fiberglass work.  I sanded the paint and fairing compounds down to remove severe cracking and flaking paint.  Either the glass work was not done properly, or there is so much flex in the liner that over time the paint failed.  I am pretty sure it is the former, and so I will take care to properly prep for paint in the near future.

Additional, previous glass work can be seen below.

I then slid forward and began to tackle the v-berth.

The interior of the hull, just visible through the v-berth lockers, was also sanded as much as possible. The RO sander was able to get access to significant surface area below, but there will be some hand sanding for me throughout all of the lockers.

With the RO sander, I managed to get at 99% of the surface area forward.

Continuing on the counterclockwise motion, I moved over to the port midships and quarter berth areas.  By this time, I pretty much could spot the areas on the liner that had received glass work - poor workmanship at that.  All areas on the liner that were addressed with "glass work" were showing major paint failure.

I worked my way aft on the port side.  At this time, I also worked the overhead and paid the price for waiting so long to tackle it - arms and shoulders were beginning to fall off at this point!

Just visible below, the area of the liner that had received fiberglass work.  The smooth fiberglass liner will likely receive something like Pettit's EZ-Poxy product.  This one-part polyurethane is an impressive option for interior boat paints, as is simple to use given the 'one-part' aspect.

With port side complete, I had just the areas left for hand sanding work, which I hope to complete in the next session.  I did not sand the cabin floor since I plan to to some recoring work here, and sanding would prove a pointless venture - kind of like bringing up politics at Thanksgiving dinner ;)

Total Time Today: 7.25 hrs