Sunday, July 26, 2009

A Little Progress

Well, a little progress has been made as of late. The saildrive leg has been removed and the old exhaust system is no more. I ground the hole in the transom that the exhaust went through for glassing but had to wait on my epoxy from Duckworks.com. Now I have the epoxy, but I don't have enough glass. So, I need to make a trip down to the marina to get glass cloth, and rubbing compound. I also began scraping the hull, a messy job to be sure. It took four hours to scrape from the transom forward 4 feet. I'll be looking into bottom paint stripper when I'm at the marina as well. Although, part of me just wants to keep going with hand scraping and forgo the extra cost of stripper so that I can say, "Yeah, I'm blue, but it didn't cost me a thing"
Anyways, that's coming along.
I also put a coat of epoxy on one side of my hatchboards. I will probably be coating the other half tonight before bed and then doing touch-ups and varnishing later. I will eventually install a deadbolt latch to the top board and hatch for security.
Well, I think that's about it for now. Pictures and further progress will be coming soon!

Monday, July 13, 2009

The Work Begins

Well, it has been two weeks now since I brought Cassandra home. The topsides were scrubbed down to remove the black mildew that covered the hull. Pinesol and water worked pretty well, and also did an amazing job of revitalizing the teak. I think everything might still need to be washed down with some chlorine to get the last of the grunge off. I removed the old seacock and thru-hul assembly with minor difficulty. The plywood backing plate was mush and so it needs to be replaced.
Very little of the deck hardware had a proper backing plate and so every fastener has leaked and may have started core-rot. I have oiled the teak to preserve it for a little while and will be installing a new seacock as soon as I have the money to buy it. I'm also waiting on the money for epoxy to begin re-bedding deck hardware and encapsulate the plywood backing plates I need to make.
If a boat-dollar is about $500 US, I think it will take 1 or 2 boat dollars to get Cassandra on the water, and that's without removing the old saildrive. It will cost even more to get everything to the condition where I would like it to be, but much of that can wait until I have the money. Progress will be slow until I get some more spending power.In that vein, I am selling my RC airplane on Craigslist to help generate some funds. I would post new pictures, but very little has changed since the boat was cleaned.
One last thought before I forget, I used Scotch's delicate surfaces masking tape to cover the various holes in Cassandra that leaked when it rained. So far it has held up quite well and has a 60 day clean removal guarantee; even when exposed to UV.
Anyways, next summer will be very different and quite fun and I'm taking one step closer to it every day I can work on Cassandra.

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