Day 269

The aft bulkhead needed to be framed up as one more step to foaming in the aft. A lot of framing needed to be added, which took most of my day. The rigidity increased noticably acoustically.

Rudder done.

Everything that needs to be welded to this bulkhead must be done now. We have a little experience in this area as I had forgotten to weld an instep and step mount across the gangway into the galley area. ( duh! ) and it must now be bolted on instead.

The image to the left shows the beauty of the rudder and how close it came in to the hull. Nice!

We must remember to fill it with something. (Oil, foam, other?)

To the right is a sandblasted stand pipe ready for coal tar.

Gena coated all of the pipes inside with coal tar with, yes, another toilet brush which means a good coat and an even cleaner looking bathroom in the house!

Blog: I'll be making planters out of all these empty toilet brush holders pretty soon! No-one will know. ( I hope hehe ) They would make a good "deep dish" for the dog while on trips in the car. Problem is, he won't drink while in the car. Maybe some humans should take a lesson from this?

There is some concern with this area of coal tar meeting bottom coat paint ( whatever that will be ) as water could get under the join and start eating it's way up the pipe, or worse, out across the hull.

This is a very real concern to us as our keel bottom paint job will need to be redone. We failed to prime along the edge, for whatever reason, and bare metal above it soon began to rust. The rust eventually ate under the thick edge of paint and went all the way down in some places.

This was just from rain and no corrosive salt. The treat of paint lifting off has really hit home to us. Of course, the sides weren't sandblasted, just ground clean, as this was to be partially removed to blend with the new bottom coat. Oh well we tryed! In the photo right, one can see straight down the cockpit drain and even the pipe taps from the opposite side and the seat/coaming drains can be seen jutting out.
Coal tar stickyness aft! Arrr!	Gena didn't stop there. She coal tarred the whole aft section below the waterline. I can help but emphasize how great this stuff is! It is a little hard to put on and is as thick as molassis in January, but it smooths over and have insulative value, plus is very tough and semi plyable. In the top photo, you can see the open hatch leading to the prop tube and tar, and possibly more ballast still only primed in red oxide. The lighter areas are the previously coated ( and dirty! ) engine cooling tanks and the nipples for a crossing hose.
Last but not least, Gena decided to make her already sore arm worse by smoothing off the weld bulges forward ( Pic below ) It's an odd thing that. Every stringer to hull plate weld made a slight bulge in the plate. At first we thought it was just the primer coat puffing up, but with closer examination it was obviously raised up right at the weld as if it expanded the plate a touch.

Day 269:
9 hours - framed aft bulkhead in pilot house, sandblasted and coal tarred all three standpipes, smoothed hull some more.