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The decks were covered with some sort of thick, sandy paint, like 1/8 inch thick and flaky. If I ever had any notions of using sand in paint for non-skid I have been completely turned off by having to grind all this crap off!
Here is the port side of the aft deck. The difference is simply amazing.
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Here we are looking forward, still have to sand the cabin top and the fwd deck.
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Tools of choice for the exterior have been a Bosch 4.5 inch grinder with 50 grid for taking off the old paint down to the original molded-in non-skid, and then 80 grit on the 5" PC DA sander to smooth that out some. Still thinking about how to get into the nooks and corners, dremmel maybe?
I've been really enjoying discovering whats under the paint, I can tell where the original hardware was from the mounting holes and there is all kinds of interesting detail in the glass work from the factory. The best part is the cockpit floor, I had seen this feature on sister ships, but it was completely covered on mine so I was worried it wasn't there, but under the paint is the molded in '3I2' symbol of the boat, pretty cool.
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Down below we started with 24 grit on the grinder since the gelcoat and paint was coming off in sheets and we just needed to help it along. The glass we took down to 120 grit and the wood to 220. After a big clean up there will be a lot of epoxy work to clean up a lot of the original tabbing, and I have one akward corner where three bulkheads on different planes come together and rotted out. That's going to take some creative plywood/epoxy/glass work.
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The bilge from hell is finished! The last of the tank finally came out, there was some glass work to do and then a couple of coats of BilgeKote and there it is. Pretty filthy now from grindign dust but nothing like before.
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The head is all cleaned out and ready for washing and rebuilding.
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V-berth too is ready. The anchor locker has been hard to get into because of the sampson posts that a previous owner installed. I'm not really thrilled with them and am seriously considering cutting them out, adding a full bulkhead and going with a deck access hatch to a self bailing anchor well. Any thoughts about that? It would mean sealing off the lower section o the locker in order to get the scuppers above the water line.
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Galley area, all ready for a new galley.
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I didn't feel like I was getting the performance I needed out of the Porter Cable sanders, so I started looking for a bigger disc sander:
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I know that isn't really boat realted, but it is a 700 pound disc sander! Just wanted to share.
The engine has been torn down and the problems are evident: zincs completely gone, cooling passages completely clogged, and the number 2 cylinder and cylinder head are rusty. I haven't taken the parts into a machine shop for evaluation yet, any ideas what went on here and what needs to be replaced?
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The project is moving very well. I know its an odd thing to say but hitting those decks with the 50 grit and taking off decades of crappy paint and exposing the original decks was just such a nice experience, I'm going to have a brand new 1960s era boat, I can already see the palm trees waving and see the stars at sea.
Dave