ClewedIn.com

The deck was a major project.  There were stress cracks, bad repairs, and an old paint job.  The boat leaked everywhere, through the chain plates, stanchions, windows and just about any other hole.  This also make the plywood core wet.  So one of the first things I did was to remove all the deck hardware and windows, even though the deck repair was to be one of the last things I did.  My thinking was that the core would dry over the months to come, especially any warm days that turned the shed into a hot house.  And after more than a year out of the elements the core seemed to have dried out.  

I started the deck repair by over drilling all the holes through the top and core but not the underside.  For the chain plate holes I drilled those out with a hole saw to remove the stress cracks surrounding them.  After taping the smaller underside hole I refilled every hole with thickened epoxy.  For the larger holes I also added cloth and strand.  Now when it came time to re-drill the holes I would hopefully not be exposing core so that even if they did start leaking again the core would remain dry.  For most of the smaller holes I used a half inch bit to enlarge the holes, in hind sight, I think I should have gone larger to give myself more epoxy between the hole and core.  I also filed and finished the edges of the port light cut outs to prevent moisture entering the core if the new windows leaked (good thing because some did initially)

Next came the sanding of the entire deck. This was tedious. Since the deck had textured antiskid areas I used scotch bright pads on the sander to clean and de-gloss those along with liquid sanding compound.  During this process I also scraped out the stress cracks and refilled them with epoxy.  For small nicks and imperfections I used spot putty and re-sanded.

The entire deck was then primed.  Next a first coat poly on all the smooth deck areas.  I debated hard on whether to use single or two-part polyurethane.  In the end I decided on one part for simplicity and cost, knowing that I would sacrifice durability somewhat.  I also convinced myself that it would also make it easier to touch up scrapes and scratches later.

After letting the first coat cure I lightly sanded all the smooth areas again and followed with a second coat and third wet coat (applied before the second coat cured completely).  This was a recommended process by Interlux.  After several days I put a coat of Interlux non-skid on the textured areas.  Let me just say now that I cannot recommend this product.  Although it is very easy to work with and provides excellent grip, it is impossible to keep clean.  One coat did a pretty good job covering and since I was getting pressed for time I went ahead and started drilling and mounting hardware thinking I would put down a second coat later. 

I also had to do some major repair on the anchor locker door and one of the cockpit locker covers.  For the anchor door I completely removed the reinforcement core.  I cut out a new piece of quarter inch plywood and added a ridge.  The ridge provided the curve to the quarter inch plywood I needed.  I dry fitted the pieces together and shaped the ridge until had the correct curve and fit.  Next, I bedded the new core to the outer shell and screwed and clamped it all together.  After it cured I used cloth and epoxy to recreate the underside.  The end result was an extremely strong cover that would bear the full weight of someone standing on it pulling up and anchor.

In the previous season I had been very displeased with the anchor setup.  The anchor door had to be open whenever we were on the hook.  In order to get the anchor ready it had to be lifted out of the locker, fished under the pulpit and set in the holders on the pulpit.  If the locker door was closed after this it would pinch any remaining rode not allowing the door to be closed completely.  I’m sure this is why the door was so damaged.  To remedy this I had two OUTLETS made out of brass pipe.  Since I also planned to add a lot more chain to my rode, I had a 3/16” stainless steel plate made to protect the deck forward of the locker.  Now the anchor can remain out on the pulpit at all times and the anchor door stays closed except when pushing the rode back into the locker.  I plan at some point to mount a TRAC to bow to improve the setup even more.

Redoing the topsides was fairly straight forward.  There was a large damaged but previously repaired hole in the port side bow that was cracked.  As I started to sand out the old repair I came to the realization that the repair had been done with automotive body putty, which is why it had cracked.  I sanded out the area, making it larger beyond the damage and tapered the hole.  I then repaired the area using multiple layers of cloth with increasing larger diameters and epoxy.  With some final filleting the repair came out better then I hoped with only a minor bit of waviness that is barely noticeable.

My wife and I worked together to apply the paint to the sides.  We had read and watched videos on the roll and tip method of application.  We attempted this practicing on the stern.  It’s harder than it looks.  After experimenting, we found we got good results with just a roller.  What we did was: Liz would roll on the paint large foam roller and I would go behind her with a smaller fine foam roller to even the coverage.  The polyurethane paint has such a great flow that the finish was very smooth even without the tipping.  In all we applied three coats of paint after primer, with the last one done wet as with the deck.  In the end, since our goal was to have a boat that looked good from 10 feet, we were more than happy.