Another Day of Grinding, Grinding, Grinding.....

My arms and shoulders feel like they are somehow detaching themselves from the rest of my body..... That said I think that it may only take one more day to get to the place where I can start to repair the surface material on the keel and touch up a few blisters on the hull.

Given the 30 year age of this hull I am amazed at the condition of it. Clearly there has been work done to the hull in the last few years and that work seems to have been really well done... Wherever there is a hole or thin-spot in the epoxy barrier coat, I will be adding waterproof epoxy and feather sanding it...
Here is the port side where I started this morning.
I coated it with stripper then took a scraper and removed most of the remaining bottom paint.

I coated it with stripper then took a scraper and removed most of the remaining bottom paint.

Today I also got the folding propeller cleaned up. It looks GREAT!




So here are the steps to refinish the outside surfaces of the boat:
- a few more hours of grinding/sanding to get the last of the bottom paint off.
- repair the damage to the keel
- re-epoxy any blisters or thin spots on the bottom
- sand the whole bottom with 80 grit sandpaper (with a palm sander).
- prime bottom
- paint bottom
- re-paint the boot strap on waterline.

Then I need to sand the gunnel and re-finnish it with either marine varnish or clear epoxy.

Finally, I will touch up any scratches or blemishes on the white topsides.

At the end I will reinstall the bracket for the dinghy davits and install the new drogue bracket at the aft of the boat....



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