Some painting complete

I have finished painting the foredeck, the anchor pulpit, the handrails, the foredeck side of the Portuguese bridge, and the bulwarks. Pretty much, all of the fore deck is finished with paint. I did this on Friday, and due to some family things I have to do this weekend, I wont be able to finish the wheel house side of the Portuguese bridge and the outer deck of the wheelhouse until sometime this week. The weather forecast for this week is on the stormy side, so Ill be able to take off work the 1/2 day I need to finish painting what I did not get finished on Friday.

The fore deck was a lot of work to paint, and used about a gallon of paint. The paint mix is 5:1, so in terms of product used, I sprayed about 1.25 gallons. That might not seem like a lot of paint, but it is a fair amount given the paint type. The fore deck and handrails is a really cut up area to paint, and was a pretty physical day for me. At the end of the day, I was feeling the workout. This is one of those deals that you cant stop once you get started, so no matter how worn out you get, its best if you suck it up and finish.

Because I decided to paint the hand rails, I had to scaffold the outside. I have a rolling scaffold I used, but that required many trips up and down the scaffold as I moved around the boat. The rolling scaffold does not fit between the boat and the barn wall, so I had to set up a 16 walk board and a ladder to do that area. Slow, thoughtful movements are the key when working 12 off of the ground lugging around a full paint pot, air hoses and safety clothing. My basic paint plan was the same as all the other painting I did which involved getting a decent first layer of paint on the surfaces, letting it tack up a bit, then come back and apply a second and third coat. With the handrails, the exposed frames of the bulwark, the bulwark cap and underside, the anchor pulpit, hatch, and cabin ventilation tubes, there was a lot of trimming in that had to be done. All of the fixtures that I just mentioned not only required trimming, they also added some square footage. Most of this area was painted at odd angles, on my hands and knees, bent over while avoiding the roof trusss. I now have a better understanding on why certain boats are more expensive to build than others, and why items such as handrails, bulwarks, and the Portuguese bridge add costs to a job. Im so glad this job is completed.

Youll notice a cubby hole on the port side of the anchor pulpit. That recess is for my wash down hose connection and a connection for an air hose. Ill explain the air hose connection at some other time, but I felt like I wanted an air hose on the bow of the boat for maintenance.

The handrail is made of 1 1/2" stainless steel with 1" stanchions welded to the bulwark cap. I had intended to hand polish this rail and leave it as shiny stainless. Like I said in earlier post, I had serious doubt about being able to get the polishing job done well enough where the handrail would not be a constant battle with rust. I think I made the right choice in painting it. Im also happy knowing that when the rail gets chipped, it will not rust quickly due to the stainless.

The paint scheme Im doing on the boat is pretty similar to the picture at the top of the blog. Because of the Portuguese bridges white color, I carried that paint line around the outside of the hull. Its nice seeing some more shiny paint on the hull as I look up at it from the shop floor.

Like I said above, Ill finish inside the Portuguese bridge this week. Now that all this paint work is completed, I can get some more finish work done while the boat is in the barn. Ill be able to install the hatch, install the dorade boxes, install the Portuguese bridge door leading to the foredeck, and install the wood cap on the Portuguese bridge. Ill also be able to install the deck plates for the two water fills, and the gray water pump out station for the 50 gallon tank located in the guest cabin. I will install the bulkhead fittings for the anchor winch and the door on the pulpit.

Im not to happy about the quality of the finish on the deck. There was a fair amount of grit on the deck from the other painting, so Ill have to take a close look at a re paint. My goal was to get the deck protected with that tough paint Im using, and thats what I did. I plan on doing a non skid deck treatment, but that will not happen until launch time. Given the additional coatings I will be doing on the deck, I think Ill let it go until launch now that it has two coats of acrylic urethane and it can now handle weather and finish work.

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More painting

Ive been busy with life here at home and have been away from things boat building for a few weeks. I have been making some headway on getting a some paint work done so Ill update on that.

I want to get the fore deck and Portuguese bridge finish painted. I need the fore deck painted to install the forward hatch, and I just want to get things off of the list. Like all things boat building, the fore deck paint turned into more than I had figured. I dont know if projects are turning into more than I figured for, or if I just gave up getting in a hurry. I had sand blasted, primed and scuffed the fore deck last year so a large part of the prep work was completed. I decided to paint the stainless steel 1 1/2" hand rails vs polishing them, so I sand blasted the rails to give the primer something to grab on to. The Portuguese bridge was a mess and had to be sand blasted. I did not have to take the whole thing down to white metal, but at least 1/3 of that area did go to white metal.

Since I gave up getting in a hurry, I decided to fair some of the fore deck and Portuguese bridge. I ran an epoxy fillet between the bulwark and deck area, and the Portuguese bridge and deck area. I faired away the all the grinder marks and a some a few areas where you could see plate joints. I also faired the large deck joints. I faired the hawse openings on the fore deck where the dock lines will pass through, and the whole pulpit area. All the areas with fairing compound on them will have to get two more coats of primer before I spray top coat paint. I had thought about using high build prime, and blocking the fore deck and portuguese bridge back down, but thats a lot of work, and I dont think a mirror yacht finish is that important for these areas.

The frames that are welded to the decks and bulwarks or Portuguese bridge will be treated a little differently. No matter how careful I try to get that joint painted I dont think my efforts will be good enough. So for these areas, Im going to use and automotive paint product called seam sealer. Seam sealer is basically a caulk that will remain flexible, but will allow the top coat paint to stick to it. If you look inside your car trunk or under the hood, you will probably see where the manufacturer used seam sealer. Ive seen boats that are framed like mine, and most of them seem to have rust stains coming from joints like this. Im hoping this little bit of work and money will solve that problem.

After I finish sanding the faired areas, Im going to scuff all the paint with some 3m pads. I have a hook and loop DA air sander, and if I cut round shape on the 3m pads, I can hook the pads to the DA and save on some elbow grease. Once everything is scuffed, Ill apply the seam sealer then prime the seam sealed joints and all the un primed fairing compound. Once the primer is on, Ill have 72 hours to get the top coat paint on or Ill have to re scuff the newly primed areas.

My goals and schedule of work for the next five months is to finish the fore deck and Portuguese bridge paint, and install the forward hatch. Ive made arrangements for a sand blaster to blast below the water line so I can get the below the water line area barrier coated. Once that part of the hull is painted, Im going to scuff the hull and top coat paint it. At that point, the hull will be ready to leave the shop, so Ill be working on getting it on a dolly for the trip to the launch site.

If I want to get her in the water next season ( 2013) I really need her at the launch site by early October. October is the driest month of the year around hear, with that dryness carrying on in to November. October will be an excellent month to weld the wheel house and salon to the hull and have her dried in for the Winter. If I can meet that schedule, I will have the Winter and Spring to trim out the Salon and Wheel house and a 2013 launch will be doable.

I really love the fore deck and Portuguese bridge. The foredeck is large and uncluttered, and the railing is of a good height and stoutness. The Portuguese bridge is of a height that will make all on board feel secure as the boat is on passage. As I stand at the Portuguese bridge while the boat is in the barn, and dream of the future, I can almost see how the sea will look as the sun starts to dip below the horizon. The only problem Im having with these two areas is that they are a pain in the ass to paint. The barn has 16 ceilings, and these two areas are in the trusss, so one has to sort of stoop/walk to navigate this area. If you were to find yourself working on my build and on this part of the boat, I can almost guarantee you would crack your head numerous times on the trusss. Another week or so of sticking to this less than ideal job, and Ill be able to scratch this project off of the list I have been meaning to write.

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Painting is complete

Like the post title says, the hull is finished painted.Whoo Hoo!!!!

My last post dealt with the port side of the boat, and this post deals with me wrapping up the starboard side of the hull and making a repair on the port side. But the jist of this post is that the paint work is completed, and I can put the paint pot back on the shelf until late August or early September.

I had to make two repairs on the port side of the hull. I prepped the two areas that needed to be re painted but I did not spray them until I sprayed the starboard side. The repairs were a result of a severe orange peel condition up by the bulwark, and a paint pot failure below the lower rub rail. The paint pot failure was some issue of the feed tube not  getting primed correctly or air locking up on me which caused the paint to not flow or atomize correctly. This below the rub rail area looked pretty rough, so I sanded it back smooth. The orange peel issue by the bulwark was a result of  me not leaving well enough alone.When I was painting this area of the hull a few weeks ago, I had lost track of how many coats I had sprayed on this area. I was unsure if I had two or three coats. The area looked good, and I should have left it alone, but being the rookie I am, I sprayed what I thought was a third coat. The prior coat had already dried, so when I applied the not needed coat, it instantly turned to crap and got a severe case of the orange peel. I started to wet sand it out, but the area was too big, and it was going to be faster to take it back down with the DA sander and re paint. Ill have to wet sand out the parting line, but that will be an easy almost relaxing job. Both areas now look good and Im glad I made the repairs. 

I cant really take a picture of the starboard side as there is only four feet of room from the barn wall the the boat. But I can tell you that the starboard side now looks like the port side, which is shiny and finished. I treated the starboard side the same way which entailed sanding the hull to 320 grit, spot priming some areas, painting the rub rail, then spraying three coats of green acrylic urethane. Ill have to do some wet sanding and polishing on a few areas, but I wont do any of that until next Spring at the launch site. Ill probably end up polishing and waxing all of the hull, but there again, none of that work will happen until next Spring or Summer just before launch.

I am sort of keeping a half baked schedule roaming around in the back of my head. While Im a week or so later than I wanted to be on finishing the painting, the painting is now complete and I can focus on moving forward. The next step is going to be getting her off of the building cradle. I found a dually truck axle for the rear of the boat and a truck steering axle for the front of the boat. No work is needed regarding the steering axle, but the dually is going to need some work before I set the boat down on it. One side of the axle is locked up and will need bearings and races, and I need to take hard look at the tires. I only have to move the hull about ten miles to the launch site, but the tires are so dry rotted, that I have my doubts about them. Once I have the bearings in them, I might bring the assembly up to the truck tire shop that sells me rubber for my trucks and see if they cant some used skins on the wheels. A halfway decent set of used rubber make me feel better about things than the dry rotted tires now on the axle.

The other reason I need to get her off of the building cradle is that I need the metal from the cradle to build a gantry and the frame for welding together the wheel house and salon. I have over 100 of 4" I beam in the cradle and quite a bit of 1/4" plate. All that will be put to good use for a gantry and frame work for the wheel house job, and will also mean I will not have to spend any money building those two items.

I need to be assembling the wheel house and salon by early July, and needed to be finished with the welding by the middle of August. Finished with the welding means having the hand rails for the salon top welded in place, the engine room exhaust funnel welded in place, the brackets for future paravanes figured out and welded in place, the mast step figured out and welded in place, the pad eyes for the mast figured out and welded in place, lifting rings figured out and welded in place, brackets for the yet to be built dink figured out and welded in place. Im sure Im forgetting a few odds and ends, but you get my drift in that time is running out. Having all this completed by mid August gives me a few weeks to finish painting the salon and wheel house, which puts me in to September, which is about when I need to be picking a date to move her to the launch site. The boat yard Im bringer her to gets busy in late October, so I want all of my work completed before that time and the high end yachts start piling up around me which will cause me trouble with painting.

Cheers

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Ive started painting the super structure

The interior of the super structure is painted and once again Ive discovered the hard way just how big a boat this is.

To begin, I am changing the paint schedule. After speaking with a commercial boat yard, they have me convinced to  only prime the interior of the super structure. The interior metal will get covered with closed cell spray foam then the liner will go over that. There is nothing such as UV or physical abuse that is going to break the primer down, so a top coat of paint is really not needed. I gave the interior a thorough blasting and applied three coats of epoxy primer.

Because I  have to weld the super structure to the hull, I taped off the the bottom edge of the metal so I will not have to grind away the primer later. Having the prime being burnt off by the welding is not only nasty, it can lead to the  primer gas mixing with the weld shielding gas and cause a defect in the weld. Porosity of the weld would be one example of a defect of this nature. Taping the joint is a heck of a lot faster and easier vs grinding.

Because paint over spray is not an issue with the interior, I decided to do this area first. Acting on the advice of some experienced paint people, I have taken a different approach to painting this part of the boat vs the hull. When I painted the hull, I blasted then primed, then started doing my fairing and filler work. The paint guys talked me into blasting the joints I want to do filler work, applying the filler, then blasting the rest of the metal then priming. Doing the work in this order will save me time as I will avoid some scuffing. This order of work will save me the most time on the roof. I  have a few areas I want to do some filler work on so I blasted those areas clean, and applied some filler. The filler work Im doing on the roof is more for function than for aesthetics. Ill sand those areas smooth, blast the rest of the roof, apply two coats of primer, and within the 72 hour chemical bond able time limit, Ill top coat the roof. No scuffing will be needed, and the more reliable chemical connection between primer and top coat is achieved.

The sides of the super structure is the area that everyone is going to see. For the sides, Im blasting all the joints and welds I want to fill over, then Im applying filler. Ill sand the filler smooth, blast the rest of the sides clean, and two coats of epoxy primer. While the primer is still hot, Ill apply two coats of sand able high build primer and long board that coat smooth. I know Ill be doing some more filler work on top of the high build, but thats  to be expected to get a nice finish. Once Im good with the high build surface ( my version of good is different than a professional body mans version). Ill spray another coat of primer to seal the high build, then top coat with my off white Acrylic Urethane. At this point the paint will be finished, and the list will be that much smaller.

Ill be posting updates as I work through the roof and sides.

The move to the launch site continues to get pushed back further. October seems doable, but early November seems more realistic. Once the paint work is finished, there is still work to be done here in the shop that will make the launch site assembly go faster. There is really no reason to slow things down by getting in a hurry. This is a big ass ed job, for one man to do by himself, and the time it takes is going to be the time it takes. I can only hope that the crap weather holds off until I have her dried in at the launch site, but Ive worked my whole life out in crap weather, so Im not to worried about me. I just dont want to compromises any work on the boat nor cost myself extra money.

Ill have the roof blasted and primed this weekend, and if all goes well, well have a off white roof to look at come Monday evening or Tuesday morning.

 

Cheers

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Interior Painting

When one hears the words interior painting you might be inclined to think of paint and how it relates to ones house. The interior painting system on the trawler is more about function than making her pretty. Most of the interior painting will never be seen again and its sole purpose is to stop corrosion from occurring. The interior paint we will see will be down in the bilge area and again the paint serves as a corrosion barrier. Steel boats of the past have earned a not so favorable reputation due to rust corrosion. The steel boats of yesteryear rusted away from the inside out. Ive seen quite a few older steel rusting hulks that had little or no paint on the inside sheathing and framing. These old boats got built, some paint slopped on them, then covered up with plywood...out of sight, out of mind. The materials and methods offered to us builders today will give steel boats the ability to outlive all of their builders without turning into rusting hulks.

Im building my boat using wheel abraded and primed steel. Wheel abrading is a method of removing the mill scale from the steel utilizing a machine that throws steel shot or some other abrasive at the steel then the metal is primed as it exits the wheel abrading machine. Mill scale is the dark coating one sees on new steel and must be removed prior to painting. Since Im building inside of my shop and I had the mill scale wheel abraded off I do not have to do any heavy sand blasting of the boat. Because Im inside Ive not had to worry about heavy rust forming during the build. The designer of the boat was also careful to not design corrosion trapping pockets in the framing where water could sit or accumulate and cause crevice corrosion to start. All the frames and longitudinal stringers have "mouse holes" cut in strategic areas to allow water to pass freely and collect in the bilges.

To prepare the inside of the hull for painting the first step was to grind all the tacks, splatter, and garbage off of all the metal. Then I used my shop sand blaster and blasted all the welds and areas I had ground. I then used my sand blaster to give the interior a light blasting to "tooth" the existing primer so my primer would stick to the existing primer. Im using epoxies for all the paint and for the primer I alternated between white and gray so I could see the coverage. I applied three coats of primer then three more coats of top coat. For the top coat of paint I used acrylic enamel.

The areas above the water line on my boat will get insulated with sprayed in polyurethane closed cell foam. The areas below the water line will have no foam. For the below the water line areas I added another coat of paint utilizing an insulating additive in the paint. This insulating additive is a NASA technology that gives an "R" value to the paint and prevents condensation. I used the "insul-add" in a primer coat and have no real complaints as to how it sprayed. The material was not that expensive and if it does half of what is claimed, Ill be extremely happy.

These pictures are of the forward bilge area. Im showing these pictures because these shots also show the mounting brackets for the water tanks.


Conall

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