Sunday 12 April 2015

Ready for paint, cradle, and starting to make mast staves.

First some cat content. It's been noted that I've gone a couple of posts without including a photo of my cat. Here he is with one of his new favourite toys, a frayed piece of double braid rope:

With my skeg completed I've been patiently fairing my hull, in preparation for painting. I started with epoxy mixed with micro-ballon fairing powder on the really dodgy bits, then did a couple of coats of unthickened epoxy, then went at it with 180 grit sandpaper until most all the gloss is gone.

I've (rather controversially, it would seem, if the woodenboat forum is to be believed) decided to dispense with undercoat. My reasoning is that I've already gone to the effort of fairing and sanding out the epoxy to 180 grit. Undercoat is only there to provide an easy to sand substrate, so it adds nothing.

Money is reasonably tight for us at the moment. A trailer is many months away, regardless of whether I buy one or build one. At some point real soon though I'm going to want to flip the boat back over the right way so I can do decks etc. In order to enable this, I've knocked up a quick cradle, out of Jarrah and Tassie oak. It's got two shaped bunks for the hull, much like the bunks on a trailer. I'll put large caster wheels on it so I can move the boat around once it's back upright.

One of the hazards of boatbuilding is that suppliers are incredibly slow. I ordered paint a week ago but to the best of my knowledge it hasn't yet been sent. In the meantime, I figured I'd start making some of the staves for my mast. Here's what happens when I scarph three 2.4m long bits of Jarrah together. Firstly I have to open the back door of the garage and poke it through, and then of course it rains.

Next step is topcoat on the bottom of the hull. I've decided to go with Norglass "enamel" (polyurethane) in "sea mist", which should camouflage the boat perfectly when it's capsized a hundred nautical miles off Carnarvon.

No comments: