Day 268

Sometimes we get ahead of ourselves. I had mentioned to Gena some time ago that grinding the hull welds forward was tedious work and had to be done slowly because the primer and foam was already inside. I didn't want to risk burning off the interior stuff. So suddenly it is required to do the aft before the same thing happens.
I warned her that hours of hard grinding was hard on the elbows but she wouldn't listen and did it anyway. Tonight she is sore and tomorrow it will be worse. She did do a really fine job though.( Photo right ) The welds below the the water line will only be smoothed somewhat, not taken down as mentioned before. Strength can be before looks below the water line. Definately.	Much nicer ( minus blotchy primer job hehe! )
Another argument against leaving them on is wear and effect of drag on the hull. Better late than never on the latter.
My job for the day became clear as I noticed that welding the stanchion mounts on to the poop deck had caused the deck to warp slightly. Just enough that it started flopping when stepped on. I added some short framing below to alleviate the problem and it all worked out fine in the end. I had to realign the stanchions that were effected. These stanchions could not be mounted on the frames at 22.5" centers as nothing lined up with the radar arch. If they had been, this would not have happened. I still had some time left so I finally installed the steps from the swim platform! They were carefully levelled and welded on with 309 spatter wire ( hehe ) To stop spatter ruining the shiney finish, masking tape is placed almost up to the weld area. About 1/4" is the closest one can get without it bursting into flames immediately. The tape leaves a sticky mess after but if removed while still hot, it can be cleaned with paint thinner easy enough. A thunderstorm abruptly ended the day so we packed it in.	Mounts welds smooth

Day 268:
6 hours - Smoothed hull welds, straightened stanchion mounts, welded on the steps aft.