Day 329

Above is a picture of the cockpit so white and clean! It didn't stay that way for long with sandblasting dust in the air and the odd drop of water flipped of the tarp for it to stick to. I had to resist the temptation to clean clean clean! Gena was right about white. It seems to get dirty really fast.

We can't wait to get the deck coat on as after that the hardware/winches/covers can all be mounted and we may have the spare bedroom back!

As the tarp had done some minor damage to the bulwark rail outer corners' coating, I had to sand it down some to prepare it for the final coat of paint.

There were also the odd blobs or droplets of paint that had been flicked on here and there during our mad frenzy to get the job done yesterday. These were also sanded smooth.

Amazingly, we only missed 4 small spots on the whole topsides. These will be repaired as well. The finish with the rollers came up as a stippled texture. A little bit of a dirt trap but not bad to clean.

The important thing is that it looks good! Some of the areas that were done while a can was "old", mixed more than 1/2 hour ago, had a much courser texture, almost pointy. Those of course were sanded down. A fine foam roller I tried made a fine rough texture that would be great for grip, but terrible to clean. This was an experiment, and will be covered by the deck coat.

- bulwark rail ready for final coat

The rest of my day involved removing masking tape, which was awful after 3 days. I would recommend to anyone masking stainless to buy the professional 1 week tape ( sometimes green ) and not the cheap house brands like we did. It would definately be worth the money as this has been a 6 hour job and I'm only 1/2 done.

Because our rented sandblaster must be returned tomorrow morning, Gena decided to get the most out of it and blast some of the hull. ( Photos above and right )

She did well, almost 1/2 the hull is done, and reportedly the mill scale on the keel was especially thick and difficult. She has mentioned that somehow it seems recycled sand works better on thick mill scale than new stuff. Go figure.

We hope to repair our compressor by whatever method possible so we can continue on the hull. Even though the hull isn't priority at this time, there can only be so much good weather for the remainder of summer. (i.e. last year it basically rained from mid July to September, then winter!)

Starboard hull blasted below water line

Molded wire clamp for solar panels need holes drilled out a little bigger for 2 screws to mount

For the longest time I have been trying to find a wire clamp to feed the wires in to the roof of the pilot house from the solar panels. Anything I found was made of either pot metal or just steel with cadmium plating.

When we went into NAPA the other day to get some tint for the deck coat, I noticed this tube of Steel Reinforced Epoxy Putty. Always willing to try something new I bought some. After kneading some up I was trying to decide what to glue with it when the thought struck me to make a wire clamp. I used whatever was at hand to shape it over on to wax paper and came up with the shape I had imagined.

Once hard, this stuff has the rigidity of a hard plastic. I have tryed to break it apart in my fingers and can't. That's strong enough for me! It just needs a coat of paint for aesthetics. The length needs to be a little more but with some sealant and a couple of small screws, these will work fine. Check it out.

Now I'm trying to think of anything else I could make out of this stuff. You must be fast at sculpting though because after about 5 minutes, it's hard!

Day 329 - 7 hours: Blasted SB side of hull, sanded bulwarks and side of hull for final coat, fixed bumps, removed some tape to retape for deck coat.

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