EARLY APRIL UPDATES

The weather is beginning to warm up. I've placed an order for materials so that I can begin to put the bottom of the boat back together. The intended process for the bottom repair follows Interlux's recommendations and is as follows:

1. Apply a layer of Interlux Epiglass to the bare fiberglass. This application is to seal up the small voids in the glass where blisters had existed.
   
2. Fair the bottom. I am intending on using Interlux Interfill 830. I am guessing this will be the most time consuming of the steps of putting the bottom back together.
   
3. Apply Interlux 2000E barrier coat. Based on the information from Interlux, this should be about 4-5 coats.
4. Apply bottom paint. I have not confirmed the type of paint I will be using, but I'm leaning heavily towards VC-17. This is mostly because I am familiar with the product and it has a decent track record.

If all goes well, the materials should be here tomorrow and I will have step 1 completed towards the end of the week.

Other updates...I have the majority of the old sealant cleaned out from around the windows. I did a dry fit of the new windows this weekend. They look absolutely fabulous! Pictures will follow when the windows are installed permanently.

Rebuilding of the rotted bulkhead is in process. I was able to obtain a piece of marine plywood from a friend of a friend who installs road signs. 'WEST 12' will be hidden away in the bottom of Hullaballo, hopefully for years to come.

I used the old rotten pieces of bulkhead to provide as close of a pattern as possible and then fit the plywood in place using a jig saw to make minor adjustments.

Now that the bulkhead is cut to fit, I've been coating it in glass so that it will not rot again. I have laid up one layer of 6 oz. glass on each side of the bulkhead and am now in the process of laying up a much thicker layer of glass on each side.


This is probably completely overkill, but as I have not had much experience in working with fiberglass, I thought I'd use it as a learning experiment.

And the last update for this week...I have refinished the tiller. I had refinished the tiller last year. It had not been finished in many years so it was sanded down, three coats of cetol applied, and 6-8 coats of cetol gloss applied.

After last season, there was a bit of dulling of the finish so I decided to add a few new layers of cetol gloss. I thought I was done with the application but as the last coat was drying, I managed to bump into the tiller several times while working on another project. So I guess I'll be applying another coat.