Plastic Classic Forum

So, I started on April Fools Day preparing Q for the season. The stated goal was to wood and Cetol all brightwork topsides, paint the bottom and go sailing. The project morphed into: 1, remounting the winches and replacing the associated Teak, some structural and some trim, in a way that would allow easier subsequent refinishing. 2, eliminating the Teak donuts around the instruments, remounting the instruments so that the dog could sleep in peace w/o blocking the depth meter. 3, wooding and refinishing the interior of the cabin at the aft end and repairing delaminated plywood and the rotting companionway sill. 4, rewiring the instruments more neatly and eliminating the mares' nest of wire. 5, Oh, yes, wood the Teak on deck and Cetol.

Memorial Day Weekend is one weekend sooner than I'd thought so Q's going in unfinished. Here's where I am on 16 May: Above: The uuuuugly donuts.
Above: A piece of McMaster-Carr's 1/4" fiberglass shaped and Brightside Polyurethaned.
Above. A piece of the Home Despot's Equadoran plywood, shaped and epoxy-coated. Through-bolted to the fiberglass outside. Covers all the previous instrument holes. No point in repairing the house at this time, since those Datamarine instruments probably won't last forever!
Above. Casework reinstalled. Since the Makore was originally pretty reddish and was badly sun-bleached, I stained it before finishing with exterior satin polyurethane. The plywood over the instruments was delaminated and discolored at the bottom edge; I reattached it with epoxy and sealed the bottom edge. The door over the instruments was a cheaper plywood and was veneered in Makore, probably using contact cement. When I used a heat gun to remove the original varnish it delaminated. I took the veneer off, cleaned the glue and veneered it anew with Makore (see next).
Above. Yup, that's the door under those lead ingots. Pressing the veneer and plywood between sheets of plywood protected with polyethylene film.
Above. The new companionway sill is 1-1/8" thick solid Makore with a strip of White Oak for the actual sill. I went to a sign shop and had Q's USCG documentation number routed in. It is now epoxied together and I'll dadoe it tomorrow to fit the existing exterior Teak sill the same way that the original Makore plywood did.

I've got the new winch bases well under way and the old holes in the coaming repaired with Teak dutchmen and bungs. More pics to follow.

Looks great - love to see pics of fun projects! Starry Night is going in this week too, done or not.

The companionway sill is in. A couple more coats of satin urethane required, thus the masking tape.

I like the way you did the registration number.

What does "wood" mean as used here: "wood and Cetol all brightwork topsides"? I've never seen "wood" used as a verb!

"To wood" is to remove the finish to the bare wood.

So that is what i have been doing. Ive been wooding! Looks good.

I found a mostly unexpected problem last Friday morning. It rained the day before so some small amount of water was still dripping from Quetzal's internal scuppers (slots on deck open to channels 'glassed to the inside of the hull; openings to the sea below the waterline). Additionally, there was a steady drip from the bottom of the keel, near the trailing edge. Hmmmm! Turns out that it was bilgewater leaking out! Quetzal's keel is hollow and contains an integral watertank, a suspended Monel fuel tank and a deep bilge. The original NE 38 and the Mk II NE 38's have a keel-hung rudder; the Mk III has a separately moulded trailing edge tabbed onto the hull. After only 42 years, there is something wrong with that area. It could be an inherent fault, damage due to grounding, or perhaps she'd been dropped. We will have that area repaired, bandaged, and Q will be launched tomorrow. We'll do a structural repair in the fall.

I have completed new, redesigned winch bases and the winches will be installed this weekend. Here are some pics:
Above. The winch on the left is forward; it has a new solid fiberglass block to bolt to the deck and through the coaming, and a two piece fiberglass and removable Teak cover.

The winch on the right is aft; it has a new solid fiberglass block to place under the stainless steel base, so that it looks more like the forward winch base, and a removable Teak cover.

This allows me to stop the coaming's varnish neatly at the fiberglass and not to have to try to varnish under the stainless; the removable Teak can be varnished comfortably.
Above. These are the after winch base components.
Above. The forward winch base components.
Above. The whole collection of parts.

Quetzal's been splashed. Went to start the Yanmar 3GM30 YEU and it ran for a few seconds and quit. (I had the engine's filters replaced, and oil changed last fall.) It took a heap of cranking and then troubleshooting before I decided that it needed to be bled. I attempted for uncounted (but many) minutes to cycle the lift pump but with no success. My thumb is still sore! I then turned off the cylinders and had Sue crank the engine while I had the bleeds (first at the fuel filter and the second at the high-pressure pump) sequentially open. Worked like a charm; the engine ran for a few seconds. Did that a second time and all was well.

Sue's cleaned her interior. Sails are bent on. We installed the four winch bases, but without the finishing Teak trims. Here is the wench at work. It took roughly an hour each to install, with Sue doing the nuts and washers and me the bedding and clean up. She got smart after the first one and brought her book in there.

Sue is definitely a keeper! I would get the silent treatment for a week for even suggesting such a thing!