December 28, 2017
Well it was just one of those days - not a Florida rain (hard pour and then the sun pops back out), but a bitterly cold drizzle reminiscent of something one would experience on an early winter day in Bremen, Germany. Just saying. It took me a late rousing from bed and then a lingering hot soak in the tub before I emerged and took to the cold, damp outdoors. With the shop opened up however, I got straight to work.
I picked up where I left off yesterday evening, and began shaping the port coaming block. I marked curves and angles taken from the original block, transferring onto the new teak. As much as I can, I am intending to leave the new blocks as thick as possible. I think the overall new dimensions of the teak coaming blocks improve their appearance in proportion with that of the new coaming boards.
With the port coaming beginning to take shape, I grabbed both blocks (and their original counterparts) and headed over to Joule for some fitting work. I began with the port coaming. I worked the inboard side that ultimately gets fastened to the cabin sides, as well as the radius curve that sits in the transition from deck to cabin sides.
After several test fits and time working the new teak coaming block, it began to hug the cabin sides in good form. For now, I decided to leave the block's height alone. I plan to dry-fit the port coaming board with fasteners and then address final shaping of the coaming block for a good fit with the coaming board - ditto for the starboard side.
Satisfied with the port coaming block, I turned my attention to the starboard block.
As I had done with the port side, I made numerous small adjustments to fine tune the placement of the starboard coaming block.
With the blocks taken as far as I dared to, I switched gears back to the coaming boards for additional adjustments on the starboard side and for fitting of the port side.
I placed the rough cut port coaming board in place and took some notes on where I needed to remove larger portions of material. With mental notes made, I headed back over to the shop to remove the excess material. As I did with the coaming blocks, I placed the board in position, noted high spots and problem areas, took the board down to the bench at the base of Joule, worked those areas requiring work, and then placed the board back in position...and repeated this process several times.
I arrived at a good fit for the port coaming, with only minor adjustments to be made on the aft portion of the coaming, as well as to plane the bottom edge to a pleasing and fair curve.
Having secured a good fit on the starboard board yesterday evening, I now placed both boards to satisfy my own curiosities :)
She's taking shape!
I wrapped up the brightwork for the day, and got straight at the fiberglass work on Joule's poop deck and cockpit sole. Earlier in the day, I water-washed the amine blush from the touch up fill work on the poop deck hardware fastener holes, and at the same time washed the previous day's work on the cockpit sole. Photo below showing sanded fill and fairing work done to the future fastener holes for the poop deck hardware.
With the RO sander and a combination of 40-grit and 80-grit discs, I knocked down the uneven surfaces of the previous day's core replacement. The new top skin consists of two layers of 1708 biaxial, and had a few proud areas that required some attention prior to applying a coat of fairing compound. After sanding the surface to prep for the fairing compound, I vacuumed the dust not captured by the RO sander and thoroughly cleaned the surface with solvent. I had rolled the wet glass out with a fin roller, but for some reason still ended up with an air bubble (center of pic). I removed the errant glass and would fill the void.
I applied a fairly liberal amount of epoxy thickened with a combination of 407 low-density and 406 colloidal silica. I will make a pass tomorrow with the RO sander and likely have to apply another skim coat to complete the cockpit sole core replacement.
Total Time Today: 4.5 hrs
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