Well it is almost sailing season here in southern Indiana but we are not quite ready to hit the water yet. We have a few weeks to go yet before we can take the Memory Maker back to her slip on Lake Monroe and work is still progressing on Miss Friday.
I have continued to sand down the hull to get most of the paint off and I am down to the wood in a lot of areas.
I sanded down to the wood here first to see what I was working with. It looks like the only areas to have any fiberglass on them are the seams. It almost looks like the rest of the boat was just sealed with paint.
I continued to sand on her with my palm sander and 60 grit whenever I had time to get covered in sanding dust. By last Saturday I was almost done.
I had seen an area on her stern when we picked her up that appeared to be cracked so I wanted to make sure I checked that area out and repaired it. Once I got the paint sanded off that area I could see we had bigger issues.
This much polyester body filler is never a good thing to see. It all had to come out and be repaired correctly if I was going to do this. So I gave up the sander and broke out the angle grinder with a fiber wheel because it was so darn thick. It took a while but I was finally able to get down to the wood under the repair.
If she could only talk I would love to know what caused this damage. I just can't imagine it happen through normal use. I asked Adrian but he had no idea nor did he remember her ever being yellow either. That was her original color as the hull sides and stern where yellow with an off white bottom. Later she was painted off white all over.
Who ever repaired her damage got rather creative as they used a piece of what I call chicken wire mesh as a back up for the fiberglass cloth and filler they used. I could not figure out what we would be causing the sparks as I was grinding the filler out with the fiber wheel.
Once I got all the filler removed I could easily see where the sparks were coming from. I am in the process of getting the area all cleaned out and cutting a patch to go in that hole and will epoxy it into place once it is all ready.
We plan on adding deck hatches to all 4 of the sealed areas both for access to storage space but also so I can epoxy the inside of those areas as well. It really looks like it is just raw wood inside the sealed area. Granted it has lasted 50 years like this but I would really like to see her last 50 more.
I am hoping to get the patch glued in place tomorrow since it looks the weather will not be conducive to outside activity. That will give me time to work on her a bit before we go off to a disco party. Long story.
I did fire up the motor for the Memory Maker last night and got her ready to go for another season. I know I should probably change the oil but it doesn't have 10 hours on it, it is as clean as it was the day I put it in, and is just as full. I am not doing it. She fired right up on the second pull. Thank God for Avgas. As long as I have access to aviation fuel I will never worry about fuel related issues with my small engines.
Hopefully the next up date will show a repaired hole in Miss Friday's stern and we will be closer to actually sailing her.
No comments:
Post a Comment