Old boat fun means old boat work!

[daydreamer92]

Originally Posted by CalebD

Great back story and Jane Austin reference. You paint wonderfully with your words and likely have a background in literature.

I do not have a background in literature. That would require me to read it.

And a lot of it is boring.

(GASP!!! says all the well-read people out there)

Ok, I've read *some* literature, enough to know that if/when I went to college I didn't want to major in it. At the risk of trotting out ye olde "these kids today" all I can say about appearing literary is that I started reading at a young age. Since reading is a key to knowledge, I eventually learned about people like Jane Austen.

Lest you think I'm a totally uneducated dork, I do now finally have a college degree, obtained only a couple years ago after I lost my job. And nope, nothing at all to do with Literature or English or writing or anything like that.

The next time you visit dinghy/stove guy on his estate you should ask him if he has any teak lumber or scraps that he is willing to part with.

I did not see teak, though I saw little squares of wood that looked like pine in big stacks. I'll try to remember to ask him though, a good idea. His basement under the house was also full of just... a lot of things. We went into it looking for mast ("It's in here somewhere...").

Most of us who hang around boats and boat yards can easily recognize your dinghy guy as the affable old salt widower. ... I guess that 'teak oil guy' was not nearly as remarkable?

I like "salt widower" as a description, fits perfectly.

As for Teak Oil guy, he was a rather handsome man with a long Greek last name. I was a little bemused when he gave driving instructions for the way back home to my husband. I was the one driving the car. No way for him to know that if he didn't see us pull up, but still. Hee.

[daydreamer92]

Has this video been posted here yet? I couldn't find it with a search.

Watching this not only makes me wanna go sailing, I wanna become a billionaire and go buy some fancy pants trimaran and just zoom around for the hell of it.

Zoooommmmm......!

[sailingdog]

I think I've linked that one at least once. Brossard is one of my favorite boats... But, I'm a trimaran person... so my opinion is a bit biased in their favor.

Originally Posted by daydreamer92

Has this video been posted here yet? I couldn't find it with a search.

Watching this not only makes me wanna go sailing, I wanna become a billionaire and go buy some fancy pants trimaran and just zoom around for the hell of it.

Zoooommmmm......!

[daydreamer92]

I spent Monday morning in my last dutiful day to the Superior Court of Hillsborough County (for at least another three years). Unlike the other two times that I attended this month, I did not get selected for a jury. Twice that guy pulled my name out of the barrel and I was seated. Twice! I never get my name pulled out of a barrel for a brand new car, or even a pretty little goody basket, but plant me in a jury selection pool and suddenly my name keeps coming up like bad seafood. The second time though, one of the attorneys yoinked me in that thing they can do a few times once people are picked. A fellowed yoinkee was a little offended to have been yoinked ("Why didn't they like me!"); I could only tell her that they tell you not to take it personally.

This time, my half of the room didn't even leave the jury corral; we sat around for about three hours. It is kinda bemusing to watch grown adults get all impatient like kids told to sit still in church.

During this time, though, learned a lot about a crabby aunt a schoolteacher had made a promise to her mom to take care of. Like boaters, jury pool people seem to bond quickly and will tell you just about anything. I'm glad I don't have to take care of a crabby aunt.

Finally, we were sprung. Whee! I had to celebrate by whipping out the craigslist teak oil and gussying up my bits o' teak. Actually I ate a donut first and THEN I did the teak.

Yesterday, I used Teak Cleaner and Teak Brightener to, well, clean and brighten said pieces of teak.

This is what they looked right after that.



I let them dry and now I had this:



Looks more or less like they did without cleaning, but oh well.

Then I used Amazon's Golden Teak Oil and oiled them. I actually did the first three coats yesterday. Three more coats today. I've read you should oil 'em until they don't want anymore oil, else the oil won't last that long. It's easy enough to do.

So here they are, all oiled.



I don't have a lot of experience with teak, so I assume that's a decent color. Beats the bilge oil gray they were before. I think they'd lighten up a bit in the sun, but these are bilge covers so they won't be seeing a lot of that.

I am pretty tempted to just go the oil only route and not worry about a sealer.

As for the tiller, it's still naked. I think it might be ash rather than poplar. I don't know. I also don't know what I want to do with it as in finishing. Minwax with spar varnish? Can I make it look like teak? A light tiller among darker wood strikes me as odd.

Ah well, time to ponder that before the weekend.

[sailingdog]

Daydreamer—

If you really want to finish the tiller and protect it, it might be worth putting a layer of clear epoxy over it first then varnishing it. The epoxy will penetrate the wood and help protect it from water intrusion and greatly reduce the risk of it delaminating. The varnish will protect the epoxy from UV damage.

[tip]

Originally Posted by daydreamer92

Yesterday, I used Teak Cleaner and Teak Brightener to, well, clean and brighten said pieces of teak.

This is what they looked right after that.



I let them dry and now I had this:

What brand cleaner and brightener did you use on the teak?

[daydreamer92]

West Marine. Both bottles were pretty old, so I dunno how effective they really were, but they came with the teak oil I bought from someone who didn't need it anymore.

[daydreamer92]

Sometimes it feels like we aren't moving "fast enough" given our limited time to actually go to the boat. I have to remind myself it's only April, and we've only been there four times and only having maybe 4-5 hours work while we are there. Baby steps, right?

Right.

No pictures from today's journey; there really isn't anything new and interesting to show.

I tried HoneyDew donuts for the first time; I have to say I prefer their plain cake donut over Dunkin's. It's hard to screw up a cake donut, granted, but the edge goes to HoneyDew.

The heavy rains from earlier this week only partly filled the bilge. We stopped at West Marine and bought 10' of bilge hose to attach to our handpump. This made flushing out the water much easier than doing "fill bucket and pour" method. The water isn't exactly potable, but it sure looks much better than the last time we flushed water out and it's been 2 weeks since we've been there.

Was a perfectly lovely day, sunny and probably 70s. I keep forgetting its Friday to the rest of the world when we are there, but still a couple folks showed up. A father and son or older brother and younger brother took a look at one of the brokered yachts a couple boats away, a something or other that looks pretty shiny compared to the collection of neglected boats around it. It looks about oh, 27-30' long. It's white with a blue bottom, which is about 65% of all the boats there, and has a bit of a pinched stern. I'm sure it's of newer vintage, say... 80s?

Newer to some anyway.

Some other men showed up to poke around and measure a trailer holding a small powerboat on it, and another guy showed up and worked about as long as we did to unshrinkwrap and dismantle the frame on his big honkin' powerboat. Another sailboat had the cover off and the PVC frame still up, so little by little, boats are starting to blossom like the leaf buds beginning to come out. I saw a forsythia already in bloom. Even the flowers have cabin fever.

We took out the remainder of the trim and shelves that would get in the way of painting or fixing, along with the head door. The boat isn't exactly an empty hull, but it's stripped down, at least to the companionway steps. The engine is still in there and so is the gas tank; those are the last two things we really need to take out.

I was brave and stomped around on the foredeck to untie a tarp so we could have some light inside the work (the tarp was over some ports and a hatch). A "hey!" from the husband inside signified a discovery that if I sat on the lower cabin roof, I squeeze out some of the water from the wet core to dribble into the boat through the opening for the mast. And onto his back, he claimed. Heh. My butt as a rainmaker, of sorts.

That cabin top will be the first section replaced when we go after wet core.

I fiddled around with exterior teak while husband removed shelves. My thoughts were that it seemed easier to work on the coaming off the boat, but it looks like a pain in the ass to unscrew everything from below, so that stays to be worked on there. We removed a couple teak cockpit covers and brought them home for some attention. A couple of the screws were angry about being asked to come out and snapped in half.

I also played around a bit with scraping and sanding inside. It looks like the first coat of interior paint was a fairly cheerful (but light) yellow, and then someone had painted white over it. Standing there looking at how much needs to be taken off still and how dirty the inside of the boat overall is a little daunting, now that one can see it all. The palm sander did ok with taking off some paint and smoothing things down, but I think the best tactic is to attack the chips with a good scraper first.

And so many nooks and crannies! I did say it looked a bit daunting, right? Right. It's only April, it's only April....

That's about it. I took at look at the hole the boatyard folks had made to drain the bilge. Poking a stick into the hole (monkey use tools!), I banged up against something solid, and peering around inside we didn't see any hole, so I'm wondering if there's just a hole in the fiberglass and something wooden blocking the actual way in, like a stringer or well, something. The hole is almost where the V-berth begins, and is really too far forward to drain where the water collects. I am inclined to put in a garboard drain/plug, it will save us some time and not have water just sitting there waiting for us to come deal with it.

Next visit, I want to take out and replace the head hoses and get rid of the "poop bag" (collapsible holding tank). Fixing the companionway hatch slider rail thing and removing the rudder heel is also on the list, as well as finally cutting out those chain plate knees now that we can get to them. Plus lots of scraping. Note to self: get goggles you can wear your glasses under.

[daydreamer92]

Yesterday, I took advantage of being home alone (husband was off doing 2nd shift OT) to tackle some of the boat bits we'd brought home Friday. A lot of plywood shelves just got a light sanding to smooth down rough edges and what not. The shelves had been painted white somewhat recently it seemed, given that they weren't really peeling much. The edges of them were somewhat uneven, making me think they were replacement shelves. That, or Tartan shelving was indifferently made. They were all still in decent shape, just needed some cleaning.

The teak consisted of the outside grab rails, two cockpit hatch covers/seats and a section of the cabin sole from the V-berth area. That part of the floor lifted right out; if the right of the sole does that, it hasn't given any indication as such.

I decided to skip the Soft Scrub teak treatment and see how just some West Marine Teak Cleaner and Brightener would do by comparison as I had some on hand. The cabin sole wasn't in bad shape really, not nearly as oily as the bilge covers had been, but the exterior teak was dry and very weathered. If there ever had been varnish on any of it, it was long since gone. The grab rails reminded me of really old deer antlers you might see hanging long forgotten in your grandparent's old barn.

Here's a before picture:



Here's a locker cover during the Cleaning phase. I've soaked it, let it sit and have given it a bit of an "agitation", as the instructions call a light scrubbing. You can see a sheen of oil.



Now rinsed and with Brightener on it:



Compared to an uncleaned buddy:



Cleaned, brightened and in various degrees of drying:



I'll put some oil on tomorrow. I think varnish would be better for outside stuff, but I just... don't want to get into the 2900 layers of varnish thing right now. I'd like to see how long the oil will last.

[pontiakos]

This is a great thread...your righting style is excellent..can't wait for the next installment