All Topped Up

Hard to believe I'm saying this, but the weather was nice. Time to get this bimini project wrapped up. We start the day by re-drilling the epoxied holes in the top. Using the drill guide we were able to get the holes drilled pretty much in the center of the epoxy filled holes. It isn't easy holding the drill guide, drill angle adapter, and drill upside down while we bore two inch deep holes in the top, but after numerous breaks due to arm fatigue, we accomplished the task. Unfortunately I made the holes a little too close tolerance in size and had to ream them a size bigger to get everything to fit (easier to do with a guide hole, no guide required this time).

The hole drilling contraption

Of course, in filling the holes, I left a little too much resin on the top side and had to sand off the little "dome" that was created at each hole so we can get the fender washers to seat better against the top. Finally, we were ready to install the supports for the last time.

I decided to create thin rubber pads for the top of the supports where it meets the top.  These pads would help the top of the supports conform to the surface of the top and hopefully more evenly distribute the load.  I used the sheet of nitrile rubber we purchased to create the 1/16 inch pads and cut them to leave plenty of room around the screws (you don't want a seal at the bottom of the screw so any water that might leak through won't be trapped at the bottom). To bed the hardware and prevent leaking, butyl tape that I had previously purchased from Compass Marine was used.  I find this stuff to be an excellent bedding material for anything that is through-bolted, just as is the case for all of these supports.

For each support, I run a strip of butyl tape around the perimeter of the mounting pad that meets the cabin top and encircle each screw hole.  I then insert the screws in the mounting plate and carefully guide the support into position (this stuff is quite sticky, so I find using the screws as a guide is helpful).  We then line up the top and insert the bolts that will hold the top to the supports and temporarily install the fender washers and locking nuts.  Then, for each screw that holds the support to the cabin roof, we remove it, wrap the head with a little butyl tape, and reinsert it.  Once all the screws have the butyl applied, the head of the screw is held stationary while the fender washer and locking nut are installed. The whole thing is then slowly tightened using a crisscross torque pattern until the butyl is compressed a little.  Butyl tape is a bit putty-like, and we will need to re-tighten each of these a few times over the next day or so until it is fully seated in position.

Once the bottom of the support is attached, we return out attention to the screws holding the top to the support.  One by one, each nut and washer is removed, the screw is wrapped with butyl tape where it meets the top, and the tape is pressed around the screw and the top, and the fender washer and lock nut are reinstalled.  Just as before, we slowly tighten each nut using the crisscross pattern until everything is secure.

Three supports later, and the top that we have worked so long on is finally a permanent addition to our boat.  Taking a step back and looking at the whole thing, I have to admit I'm proud of the work that my wife and I have done.  We think the top looks pretty darn good.  Apparently we aren't the only ones as we have received a number of compliments from people who have been here to see it in person. We've been told it complements the boat nicely and looks like it could have come from the factory.  My wife even overheard one of the guys at the boatyard telling someone else that it looked like it came out of a mold.

Not bad at all for two amateur, first-time builders doing hand-laid-up fiberglass in a boatyard. I'd like to say the project is finished, but is any boat project ever really finished?  We have an enclosure to add, and solar panels, and lighting.  But the top itself is done!

To Skid or Not To Skid

On Monday I was able to go to a local boat supply store and pick up the extra gelcoat that I needed.  I don't know if I mentioned this already, but I'm actually using waxed gelcoat for this.  The reason...economics.  The gelcoat I started with, ClearCote, I purchased from the marina.  It didn't make sense to get waxed gelcoat since both were the same price.  Then someone pointed out that Kings Marine (a few minutes down the road) sells the same gelcoat for about $15 less, but they only stock the waxed version.

For the non-skid it doesn't really matter which one I use.  Normally, the purpose of the wax is that it makes its way to the surface to seal the surface from air and allow the gelcoat to fully cure. The technique for creating the non-skid texture requires that PVA be used to seal the surface because the non-skid breaks the wax film and could prevent a full cure.  But the waxed version can be used and, given the price difference, it was an easy decision.

Now the weather forecast on Monday was that rain could be in the area but was likely to miss the northern half of Hampton Roads.  Yeah, right.  It rained off and on most of the day.  I didn't want to risk water contamination on the top, so we held off.  Instead, we decided to run another test in creating the non-skid texture since we have found that the gelocat we are using is different from the one I did the test with and the temperatures now seem to have an impact on how the stuff acts. We were able to determine that at around 60 degrees we could add one heaping plastic spoon full of fumed silica (about 2 tablespoons or so) to 2 ounces of gelcoat to get a reasonable result.

Yesterday the weather improved.  It wasn't very warm (I think the high was around 55 degrees F.) but the sky was clear with little chance of rain.  Inside our work "tent" we can somewhat control the temperature with the heater, so we did the application.  We prepped three mixing cups with 16 ounces of gelcoat, adding the 8 heaping spoons of silica and mixing it in well.  We then confirmed the temperature was about the same as it was during our test and catalyzed the first cup of the white goo.

I applied the same thick layer of gelcoat that we did during the test using a 1/4 inch nap roller.  We then catalyzed the second cup and repeated the process.  Then we used the loop texture roller to roll over the first section we applied gelcoat on.  To create the texture, you take this roller and roll the gelcoat as starts to thicken up during the curing process.  The first section wasn't quite ready so it created more of an orange peel look.  We catalyzed the 3rd cup and applied it.

After getting the 3rd cup on the top, we went back again and ran the texture roller over the first section. It was thick enough to make a texture, but the texture wasn't the same as it was the day before.  I just don't get it, gelcoat seems to behave differently every day we use it even when we pay very close attention to the temperatures and amount of catalyst used.  While it was different, it was "good enough" and so we kept going.

It was a difficult process to complete the top.  My wife would mix up the gelcoat and help with the texture rolling, and I would apply the gelcoat and work the texture roller.  Getting the timing right is a trick.  If you wait too long to try creating the texture, the gelcoat cures and you can't impart any texture.  If you don't wait long enough, the gelcoat flows back together into an orange peel look. Getting the timing right and getting each section to look like the last is quite a tedious trick.

In the end, we had one section we re-coated and re-textured because we missed the timing window and the surface was far too smooth.  It doesn't look perfect, but...as I said before...good enough.  After getting all the gelcoat on and textured, we quickly went around and removed the tape from the edges (before the gelcoat permanently made the tape part of the top).  I then applied the PVA to our work and cranked the heater up to help everything cure.

Non-skid applied and coated with the green PVA to cure.

The texture didn't hide the imperfections in the surface as well as we had hoped, but the top should be perfectly functional, looks "good enough", and means we are done with the fiberglass and gelcoat phase of this process...I hope.

Now I need to convince the boatyard to help me get it to the boat in a timely fashion so we can temporarily brace it up, mount it to the arch, let the welder get accurate measurements for the front supports, and get the window installed.

We are getting closer to getting out of here...yay!

All White

Some days on this project, I just don't feel like I'm making any progress.  Then other days I do.  Today was one of the latter.  After spending way too much time applying gelcoat and then sanding it off, we got the rails "good enough".

Yesterday was spent preparing to apply the gelcoat to the body of the top. Using the sander with some 80 grit paper, I tapered the gelcoat "edges" to make a smooth transition from the handrail to the fiberglass surface of the top.  Then we applied a little more thickened resin to try and help fair (smooth) the surface of the top.  While that was curing (late in the evening with the heater running), we taped off that handrail that we just finished spending way too much time on.

This morning we awoke to temperatures just above freezing.  After being fortified with some coffee and getting the propane tank for the heater filled, we started the day trying to defrost and dry out the work tent.  About the time things were finally drying out I realized we were missing the spare roller cover for applying the gelcoat.  A run to the local Home Depot (I like their roller better than the one at Lowe's) and a quick stop for lunch (yes, it took that long to defrost and dry everything), we were finally ready to put some gelcoat down.

Using a hotplate and pot that my neighbor in the boatyard has, we warmed up the gelcoat to make it a bit easier to apply.  Just under a gallon of gelcoat later, the top is now completely white.

Masked off for the texture portion and first gelcoat application

Of course, this is only the first couple coats on the top side. We still need to add more gelcoat and create the texture.  Unfortunately, it is taking more gelcoat than we had planned and we aren't sure we have enough to finish the job.  So, we are debating our options right now.  We won't be able to get more of the same gelcoat we are currently using until Monday or Tuesday.  We could go to West Marine and pick up a gallon of gelcoat, but what they sell retails at about 3 times the price per gallon and has different characteristics in how it flows (the white does seem to be the same color though). We can alter they way we planned on applying the gelcoat to compensate if we want to.

Given the astronomical mark-ups that West Marine charges if you don't have a Port Supply account (Port Supply pricing can be less than half the normal retail price), I really prefer not to shop there unless it is an absolute emergency.  I just don't like rewarding price gouging behavior (if West wanted to be more competitive, I'd be more happy to shop there). Of course, getting this top done and getting out of here is getting to be an emergency of sorts and I would really like to have the top ready to go on the boat come Monday.

Guess we will see how we feel (and how the weather forecasts look) in the morning.

Top Cat

Work continues on the hardtop.  We patched the last two thin spots in the gelcoat, then found three more and patched them as well.  Apply gelcoat and then sand half of it off, feathering it into the surrounding finish...wash, rinse, repeat.  I keep trying to convince myself I love to sand, but it's not working.  As of this morning, I think we are done applying gelcoat...but then I said that to myself yesterday, so who knows what the light of day will bring.

But this post isn't about more sanding, instead it is about the cat.  Remember the cat that seems to have adopted us while we were in the boatyard?  Well, she continues to warm up to us despite the fact that the guy a couple boats down wants to adopt her.  I think we spend more time in the yard and have a bit more downtime (to pet the cat, of course) so she seems to hang around us most of the day. Hope she warms up to our friend soon; I think she will want a warmer home than my work space tent.

Yesterday she decided she wanted to help with the sanding...or maybe it was supervise.  Ok, she probably thought we were warmer places to sleep than the ground, but in any case...

I'm not in the way am I?

Don't mind me, I'll just sleep here
while you work.

I can't imagine why it is taking us so long to finish the top, can you?  I hope this cat understands that our dogs won't allow her on our boat (she has seen our dogs).

Marina "Wildlife"

In case you didn't figure out from the lack of posts the past few days, it has actually been nice here.  From Thanksgiving through yesterday it has been relatively warm during the day (the 60's and low 70's) and not raining.  So we have been working hard trying to get the finish on the top...er...finished. I could tell you how we spent the last several days repeatedly applying gelcoat and then hand-sanding most of it back off, but I won't.  I think I've previously mentioned all the issues with hand-applying gelcoat to make a smooth surface and don't want to bore you with more of the same.

About as smooth as we can apply this gelcoat.

The marina I'm staying at is in a bit more rural part of Virginia.  It isn't the west's version of rural where your nearest neighbor is 50 miles away, but there is some forested land here and there in between the houses. The homes I see on the roads here seem to sit on somewhere between 1 and 50 acres if I were to take a guess and there isn't a lot of empty land wedged in between them and the roads on this peninsula. Farm fields are still a bit further down the main highway and technically I think this is a town, but it isn't as densely packed as bigger cities or their suburbs.

Across the Severn river a couple mornings ago.
Not densely populated, but not that sparse either.

The reason I'm telling you this is because it is hunting season, something we are painfully aware of as we work out in the boatyard.  Off in the not-so-distant distance we hear a regular smattering of gunfire. I think someone mentioned it was deer season, but I don't know what they are hunting for sure.  All I know is that they don't seem to be too good at it. Often the shots are heard in groups of 6 or more, and one time I think I even heard a semi-automatic weapon of some sort being fired. The theory of being a good shot, making a clean kill, and not wanting the animal to suffer seems to be lost here.  And given the proximity of homes, property, and even this marina, I'm a bit concerned with what seems like less than good marksmen nearby. They recently put up no hunting signs at a local city park in the area. Fortunately we are surrounded by boats that should act as shields from most directions.  But it still amazes me how people are hunting on relatively small plots of land in close proximity to civilization.

Our new cat friend resting on her favorite
scratching post.

Back at the marina there isn't much in the way of wildlife (out of the water).  There is the kitty that has adopted me and my project and I think has taken up residence in the tent when I am gone.  She is definitely more comfortable with us than she was, and a guy with a boat two down from our project in the yard is trying to befriend and adopt the stray.  That same guy painted his boat a couple days ago and ran afoul of the other bit of wildlife we've encountered in the yard: bugs.  I don't know how these beetles did it, but they managed to get their backs stuck to his paint...which begs the question of how these bugs fly that they get stuck to a vertical surface on their backs.

It's hard to take pictures of the stupid bugs
with their backs/wings stuck in the paint.

Today it is cold and rainy so I don't know how much work will be done...and I had time to write a post.  We have a couple spots we sanded too thin and will need to reapply some gelcoat at least one more time.  After that, we just need to apply the non-skid gelcoat pattern to the topside body of the hardtop and we should be ready to move it to the boat.  So close, yet so far away.

Rain, Cold, and Wind

Looking back, if I had one thing I would change about this project, it would be shelter from the elements.  The weather has dogged me the entire project.  I guess, coming from a state where it is sunny and not terribly hot most of the year, I just didn't think about how much of an impact it would be. I did try to find an indoor work space when I was looking for a place to build this top, but the only two I knew of were well south of my insurance restriction for location during the dreaded "H" season.

Building a makeshift shelter (or as I often joke about it, a refugee camp) has helped.  It kept the sun off of it during the summer and now it can help hold heat in a bit.  Unfortunately, tarps tied to a canopy aren't the best when it comes to rain.  They work for a little while, but stretching them over boat stands takes its toll and they start to leak.  I've replaced or reinforced a couple, but even then the drainage of water off of the tarps can be an issue.  The other problem with the shelter is the wind.  Using a propane forced air (torpedo) heater, I can get the "tent" pretty warm, but if the wind is really blowing, the heater is much less effective in the drafty shelter.

"Enclosed" work space canopy with 10 tarps

I'd consider getting a somewhat more substantial shelter (one of those pop-up car ports or similar), but at this point we are so close to completion that it doesn't make sense to plunk down the money on one.  A tent or carport large enough to fit the top, provide room to walk all the way around it, and room for a work table is a bit pricey.  If I had bought one at the beginning it probably would have been worth it (or, who knows, maybe it would have other problems of its own like heat build-up during the summer).  So, I make do with my canopy and the 10 tarps that are tied to the frame.

Panorama inside my workspace.  

Despite all of this, we have been making some progress on the top.  Discounting the hour or two it takes to setup and close down the tent each day, we have about six to 7 hours of working time.  On good days, I can raise the temperature inside the tent 20 degrees or more over the ambient temperature and that is good enough to get resin and gelcoat to cure. We were able to apply a weave fill coat of polyester resin to the top.  Yesterday we put gelcoat on the window opening and another coat along the top side of the handrails.  That took a bit longer than planned (seems that everything does) and we were running the heater until 7 PM so it would cure.

Today was cold with the high of 51 at 5 AM and falling ever since.  With help of the heater, I was still able to do a little wet sanding of the gelcoat (in this case the top didn't need it but I did). This evening the low is supposed to be around freezing and tomorrow is supposed to be windy, so I don't know that I'll be getting an early start in the morning.  Maybe after a couple hot cups of coffee...maybe.

P.S. The cat seems to like the tent, she often hangs out under the top while we are working...whenever it is cold or raining.  And this morning I found her sneaking out from underneath it when I arrived.

Sunny Side Up

I'd love to be writing a blog post about eggs (or any other subject) but, alas, it is yet another post on our fiberglass bimini project.  While the temperatures haven't been perfect, we have had a couple good (read dry) weather days and have been making some progress.  If the weather guessers are correct, it looks like we might have a few more nice days so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can make a lot of progress in that time frame.

In my last post I mentioned I was waiting for some rain to clear.  Naturally, it stuck around longer than predicted and we didn't get nearly as much done as I hoped that day, only managing to get gelcoat on the mounting flange at the rear edge of the top.  But the following day was dry and we spent the day applying gelcoat to the rest of the bottom side of the top.

The bottom is all white now.

Remember the experimenting I did early in the project to figure out how to get the textures I wanted in the gelcoat?  Apparently most of that experiment wasn't very fruitful as we have come to find that gelcoat can behave very differently with the subtle changes in temperature.  We ended up experimenting a bit as we went but came up with an option that was "good enough" (see...I'm learning). It is far from perfect, but it is the underside of the top, and as long as it is protected and doesn't create a lot of glare, we are moving on.

Front edge detail. The green is a combination of the green tarp
and the PVA used to seal the gelcoat surface.

So, the underside of the top is now done, with the exception of a small amount of patching I will have to do for the window opening.

The next step was to get the top flipped back over so we can make the cutout for the window and finish the top side of the top.  Fortunately the boating community is filled with good people who always help one another out. I was able to round up 7 other people at the marina, and we made fairly quick work of getting the top off of the table, out from under the tent, flipped over, and placed directly on jackstands back under the tent.  It seems like it has been quite a while since I've seen this side of the top.

To thank my fellow boaters for their help, we got some pizza, soda, and beer and had a nice little lunch in the boatyard.

Thanks for the help guys!

Next we need to create a router template for the window and cut the hole in the top.

Paint It Yellow

I can't believe I'm still here in Virginia working on this hardtop project. I knew I was being optimistic with the original theory on how long it would take, but we are over 3 times that now.  And it is taking a bit of a mental toll on us.  Hayes, Virginia, has lost its appeal and we really, really want to be moving on.  We know that this will be one of the best additions to the boat in the long run, but we need to get this thing done.

One of the largest issues seems to be the weather.  When we started the project, temperatures were so high that we couldn't lay up fiberglass until late in the evening.  Now the temperatures barely make it up to the recommended 60 to 65 degree (Fahrenheit) minimum needed for polyester resin and gelcoat to cure. Of course being outside, rain has also been an issue.  You can't get uncured or curing resin wet, and laminating resin doesn't like to be wet even after it cures since the surface is still tacky. Shielding our work from the elements has been a challenge.  Right now I'm waiting for some rain to blow over so we can hopefully apply more gelcoat later today.

Weather hasn't been the only issue, though.  As I've admitted before, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. This doesn't really work well when working in 3rd world conditions in a boatyard.  Don't get me wrong, I think the top is coming out very well, but my engineering mind sees the minor issues and wants to fix them.  Some of the imperfections have caused issues and taken a lot of time as well.

Still have a little gelcoat to apply to the underside before we flip it.

The handrails, particularly along the front edge of the top, are not perfectly straight and/or nice uniform curves.  The minor variances mean that when trying to smooth the gelcoat (we want the handrail detail to look good and feel good when you are holding onto it), it is very easy to sand through the coating. Gelcoat requires a thick layer to look good, and if it gets thin (what would be considered a thick layer in terms of regular paint) it becomes translucent. As a result, we've applied gelcoat, sanded it down, and repeated this process until there are only a couple thin spots left.  At this point I think we can touch up the thin spots and be good to go.  But it has taken a lot of time to get to this point. In hindsight, we probably should have just kept the minor orange peel texture that the paint roller created...oh well.

We've been here so long, that even one of the stray cats that hangs out in the boatyard has decided to adopt me.  Or maybe she just likes the shelter from the rain that three roofs (the canopy, the hardtop, and the table) provide.

Boatyard stray cat that seems to like us.

So, what does this have to do with the title of this post...well, I'm getting to that.  As a perfectionist, I've always had a problem with the concept of perfect being the enemy of good. One of the reasons I became somewhat dissatisfied with my career was that I wanted to do good work and most companies just wanted fast (let the customers find the bugs) and didn't care much about good. I became more forgiving with software but still refused to put out a bad product.  With something visual like this hardtop, I'm still battling with the idea of "good enough".

The "Paint it yellow" story came from a coworker a number of years ago.  My memory isn't perfect, so this may not be accurate, but this is how I recall the story going.  My coworker was working for a large software house.  As such large companies like to do from time to time, they do somewhat cheesy things to try to boost morale or motivate employees.  This company had a "caption this poster" contest where they had a number of poster images and asked employees to come up with motivational captions.  Among the posters was a picture of a bunch of yellow chicks with one albino chick in the mix.  I'm sure that the company was looking for something like "stand out in a crowd" or "don't be afraid to be different".  One of the employees, apparently having worked in the industry long enough, had what was a more appropriate caption for the poster.  His entry was "Screw it. Paint it yellow and ship it".  A short time later, the contest was cancelled and the posters were taken down.

But, for a perfectionist, this is an important lesson.  While it is admirable to always want your work to be the best, sometimes you just need to realize there is a point where it is "good enough".  I'm sure the top is better than good enough, now I just need to convince myself of that and get this thing done and on the boat.  But first, I guess I need to convince mother nature to stop spitting water at me.

If At First You Don't Succeed

Sorry for the sparseness of posts recently, but we have been pushing hard to try to get the hardtop bimini built and get out of Virginia before it gets much colder.

In the last post I mentioned we did a little gelcoat and sanding resulted in some bare spots.  Well, we managed to get gelcoat on the remaining handrail edge of the top and the result was similar all the way around. Given the third-world conditions in which I'm building the top, it isn't too much of a surprise that the surfaces aren't as fair as I would have hoped.

Working in the rain.

Then it donned on me that part of the issue may be in the application.  Brushing gelcoat on is not easy and the chance of getting a nice, even coat is unlikely.  So, we went looking for a small roller that would work around the curves of the rail.  Finding a small diameter roller was easy, finding a cover that works with gelcoat (or polyester resin for that matter) is a bit more difficult...they don't tend to list resin or acetone compatibility.  Best you can hope for is if they list that it is safe for oil-based paint and thinners.

The roller produced a much more even coating but it was also much thinner than the brush approach.  We did two coats with the roller and tried sanding things smooth and fair again.  Unfortunately, there were still a few spots that we sanded a bit too thin, but not as many and not as large.  So today, we applied another two coats and that should hopefully do the trick.

Because the bottom side of the top is facing up we are working on that side first.  The beams that run along the underside of the top divide the surface, so we also started applying gelcoat to them today.  Since it is difficult to reach the middle of the top from the sides, I climbed onto the top to do the "cut in" of the beams.  Unlike the handrails, we will not be making them smooth but will be applying an orange peel like texture to them.  Originally, I had thought of making them smooth, but with time running short, we decided it would be just too much sanding to get it looking good.  Application of the gelcoat with the roller can easily be given an orange peel effect if you run the roller over the gelcoat after it has been applied for a few minutes.  A few minutes running the roller over the gelcoat sure beats days of sanding and re-applying gelcoat.

Working at night...again.

By the time we were done today it was actually tonight and I was applying the PVA to our newly gelcoated surfaces in the dark.  Then the heater was again used to under the tent to aid in the cure.  Tomorrow we should know if everything worked OK.

Once we get the handrails sanded smooth (and without bare or thin spots), we can mask them off and paint the remainder of the underside of the top.  It will be getting the same orange peel texture to hide any minor issues with the underside finish and to reduce glare in the cockpit.

60 Degrees and Raining

My usual luck with weather returned yesterday.  I think the high may have been 62 degrees at sometime around 3pm and the gelcoat says don't apply below 65 degrees.  And while it doesn't explicitly say not to apply it in the rain, I think that is a safe assumption.

Fortunately version 2.0 of  the camp gave us the ability to apply a little gel coat anyway.  While some of the tarps are getting a little worn, one was still pretty waterproof and we were able to raise it enough to access one side of the top.

We mixed up some gelcoat, catalyzed it at the high end of the range (the bottle says to use between 1 and 3% MEKP) and brushed it on the starboard edge and the first couple inches of both sides of the top.  Then we fired up the heater to bring the temperature inside the tent to about 75 degrees.  Once the coat started curing, we turned off the heater, mixed up some more gelcoat, and applied it over the first, brushing it on at a 90 degree angle to the first coat.  Started the heater and let that cure for a little bit and then did one more coat. After all three coats had cured a bit, I brushed on some PVA (this is laminating gelcoat) and let the heat complete the cure.

Gelcoat curing under the heated tent.

Today the rain continued and I spent most of the day sanding and shaping the gelcoat after washing off the PVA.  I think it was due to the temperature, but for whatever reason, the gelcoat didn't flow as well when applied the day before and so a lot of sanding was needed to make everything smooth.  Since I don't have a real longboard sander, I'm using a drywall sanding block and it worked really well. As it turns out, even with 3 coats, there were still thin spots once everything was sanded smooth.  So, at this point, the edge shape looks really good but I will need to apply another coat and try not to sand through it.

The rainy weather is supposed to break tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have a bit better luck getting the gelcoat to flow and can get a nice even 30+ mil coat applied to the rest of the edges (so when I sand there will still be 20 mils or so left on the top).  With any luck, maybe I can get the rest of the edge done without sanding all the way through the gelcoat and having to reapply more.

I Love to Sand, I Love to Sand...

I read somewhere, don't recall where now, that if you want to work with fiberglass you should get up every morning and look into the mirror and say "I love to sand".  Well, ever since my last post that is what we have been doing.  Sanding, grinding, or whatever you want to call it, a LOT of it needs to be done if you intend to finish the surface and have it look anywhere approaching nice.

Normally one would sand the entire surface smooth, apply the marine equivalent of body filler, then sand some more until everything was nice, even, and smooth.  Sanding would include use of a special hand sanding block known as a long board to make smooth curves, and I've heard this can be quite tedious.

In our case, we don't even have to sand a lot.  Outside of the fiberglass seams and the pattern of the weave of the fiberglass cloth, everything is pretty smooth. Most of the top side of the new bimini will be coated with gelcoat using a non-skid technique that will be thick enough to hide just about anything.  Most of the bottom side will be textured to reduce glare (yeah...that's the reason...definitely not because I just don't want to grind more fiberglass).  So, the only bits that really need to be rather smooth are the handrail edges of the top and the beams underneath.  And, for the most part, that is all we have been sanding...all week.

Sanding the top.

The problem I'm having with sanding has partly to do with the type of resin I am using.  There are two different types of polyester resin: laminating and finishing.  Laminating resin is standard polyester and, since polyester won't cure in the presence of air, the surface stays tacky so additional layers can be easily added and will chemically link together.  Finishing resin is polyester with an additive (a wax of sorts) that rises to the surface, cutting off exposure to the air, and this allows the resin to fully cure at the surface.  When building the top it has been advantageous to use laminating resin so I can stop at the end of a day and resume the next day (or two).  And since gelcoat is nothing more than polyester resin with color added, the laminating resin bond would be helpful there as well...as long as you didn't need to do much sanding.

...and more sanding.

Sanding laminating resin where the surface hasn't fully cured tends to gum up sandpaper quckly.  I could have used a finishing resin for the last coat (or added wax to the stuff I have or use PVA to seal the surface) so it would be easier to see, but then I would lose the chemical bond that will occur between the unsanded portions of the top and the gelcoat.  I'm not sure which is actually a better way to go, but this chicken-and-egg problem I decided to bite the bullet and just try to sand the laminating resin.  This took a lot of time and a lot of pieces of sandpaper.

The remainder of the pain was just from sanding fiberglass itself.  Fiberglass is rather tough stuff to sand, and the dust produced is, as I previously mentioned, extremely itchy. Every day for the last several days I thought "I'll finish sanding today and can start applying gelcoat tomorrow" and yet I would find more to sand.  This is where being a perfectionist is definitely a detriment.  One of these days I will learn that perfect is the enemy of good.

This afternoon I finally reached the "good enough" point...or was it sick enough of sanding...and decided it was time to apply some gelcoat.  At about 3 PM we applied some gelcoat to the back of the mounting flange.  It was a good place to start and test any techniques since it will be mostly hidden once the top is mounted.  Using a chip brush I applied two coats, making sure to brush the stuff on in different directions for each of the coats (I've been told this gives more even and complete coverage).

Finally, a little gelcoat.  Oh yeah, we also cut access holes
for the wiring chases.

The gelcoat I am using is a laminating resin as well, so after applying the stuff and letting it set up a bit (about 45 minutes), I had to apply PVA in order to seal out the air and let it fully cure.  The PVA was also applied with a brush, this time a cheap foam brush.  It did a good job of applying a thin layer of the PVA as best I can tell.  By this point, the temperature was dropping below 65 degrees, so we broke out the space heater to help it cure.  I think everything went well, but I guess we won't know for sure until we try cleaning off the PVA in the morning and try sanding the gelcoat smooth.

And that, in addition to applying more gelcoat, is what will be on tap tomorrow...if the weather permits.

Anchors Aweigh

No, I'm not heading away just yet. But I am getting a step closer as I checked the anchor roller repair off the list today. Where I last left off with the story, I had just completed the fiberglass layup and was letting it cure before continuing work. With the weather issues, it has taken several days to complete this project.

After the fiberglass had cured for several days (long enough I hope it had bonded as well as it was ever going to), it was time to cut the excess fiberglass off to create the finished edge of the opening. Using the vibrating multi-tool I picked up at Harbor Freight a while ago, I trimmed the edge down even with the existing structure. I then sanded it to even everything out and make it look like it should.

Edge all trimmed, note how thick it is now.

Next, I needed to re-drill the mounting holes. In all but one case, part of the old hole was left behind so it was a simple matter to punch through the new layers of fiberglass (using a wood backing block helped to prevent splintering). Once those holes were in place, I temporarily mounted the roller so I could mark the location for the one new hole. After it was marked, that hole was drilled.

Originally, the anchor roller was mounted with simple fender washers to back up the bolts against the fiberglass. A better option, and one that may have prevented the failure of the fiberglass around the bolts in the first place, would have been a proper backing plate. So I decided I would do the right thing and I had a stainless steel backing plate made at a local machine shop.

Old backing versus new...which one do you think is better?

With new holes and a new backing plate, I decided it would be a good idea to test fit everything before I painted the new fiberglass. When fitting the backing plate, I noticed that a couple drips of epoxy were preventing the plate from sitting flush. I grabbed my Dremel tool, put on a small drum sanding bit, and removed the drips. The plate now sat flat. Of course, this was the point where my ring decided to go for a swim. Note to self: I need to make sure I remove jewelry, no matter how minor the project.

I had purchased some bilge paint to coat the new fiberglass in the anchor roller locker, but I guess I should have read the label better. Checking the label, it said it wasn't for use with epoxy without special primers and at the temperatures I would be working in, it said it would take two or three days to dry between coats.  I decided I would return the paint and use gel coat instead. It should provide good protection and won't have the same drying issues...or so I thought.

Proof the gel coat was mixed well.

I'm not sure what happened, but a couple small spots on the first coat of gel coat didn't cure properly. Even though I used finishing gel coat with wax, a few of the spots acted like the wax didn't work. What is it with waxed gel coat not always curing properly. I guess, in the future, I should just use laminating gel coat and plan to use poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) to seal the surface for the final cure. I ended up applying more gel coat to the problem spots and that did the trick.

Everything coated and ready to mount the roller.

After letting the gel coat cure, I used some sandpaper to clean out a few drips from the mounting holes and I was finally ready to bolt everything back together.  Once more into the dinghy (so I could work from below the locker) and with Bill's help I was able to get the roller mounted and the anchor back on the end of it's chain.

The Mantus back home where it belongs.

Everything seems very solid now, no movement of the roller bail at all even when I put all my weight on it. Between the added thickness of fiberglass and the new backing plate, I think the mount is significantly improved.  Hopefully it will keep the Mantus anchor secure for a long, long time.

Practice Makes...Well Practice.

Weather, weather, weather...living on a boat is ALWAYS about the weather.  It doesn't matter if you have been sitting at a dock for a month with no immediate intention of leaving, your life still seems to be dictated by the weather.  In my case, there are two projects that need to be done before I leave the dock and they both depend on the weather.  I need a stretch of warm, dry days in order to pull the salon windows, clean up the mess created by the sealant that was originally used and failed, and rebed them in a different sealant.  I also need a stretch of warmer days to allow for proper curing of epoxy fiberglass (and not being rained on while laying it up would help).  So, in line with my usual luck, the weather the past week or so has been cold, rainy, or both.

Given my frustration with my lack of progress the past week, today I figured out something I could do.  Even though it has been rainy all day, I decided I should practice the basic method I intend to use for the fiberglass repair.  In the anchor locker there is a fiberglass tray that is not in the best shape  and had a hole in it, so I decided I would practice by repairing this hole.  I went out in the rain and unbolted the tray and brought it back to the cockpit so I could attempt the repair.

The process I intend to use on the anchor locker repair is to attempt to build a mold around the damaged area (the missing piece) and then start with the gel coat and complete the layup as you would do in a molded part.  This basic process is outlined in this video:



Since the goal of this repair is to practice what I will need to do for the anchor locker, I'm using biaxial cloth and epoxy even though it is overkill for this mostly cosmetic part. I started by grinding down the glass on the back side to create the taper for the repair.

You might be able to tell that this hole is along a curve.  Of course, the video doesn't provide any good hints for creating a mold around a curve and I have been wrestling with that part of this process in my mind for a little while.  Since I'm not really worried if this comes out that great, I figured I would try just taping some poly plastic to the back to seal and hopefully follow the contour.  It isn't the greatest mold, but hopefully it will work.  I then mixed up some gel coat and applied a thick layer to the plastic backing the hole.

While the gel coat was setting up, I cut the fiberglass to use for the patch.  I went with three layers of the biaxial cloth.  The layer closest to the gel coat was a special cloth that also has a chopped strand mat on one side to help avoid fabric print through.  Once the gel coat started setting up, I mixed up the epoxy, applied a thin coat to the repair area, placed the fiberglass cloth over the repair area and wetted it with a disposable chip brush.  I then applied the next patch and again wetted it with a little resin on the chip brush.  Repeated one more time with the final patch and the fiberglassing was complete.

The look of the biaxial cloth is different than the finish on this part, but it should match the other repair area well.  I will still need to put some gel coat over the top of this after everything cures and I clean and scuff it up a bit, but I think the glassing itself went well.  I did notice that the curing of the gel coat seemed to cause the plastic backing to wrinkle, so I will definitely need to find a better option for creating a conforming mold when I do this repair on the compound curves of the anchor locker.  Guess I will find out how well it all turned out tomorrow, after I let it cure overnight.

Highs and Lows

I don't know where I heard it, perhaps on a number of blogs I read, but the general idea is that cruising is filled with highs and lows that are a bit more extreme than those in a more "normal" lifestyle.  I think my lack of posts recently was due to one of those lows.

After arriving in Brunswick, I had a list of items in need of attention. This seems to be a common theme aboard boats...what do they say...something like "if you don't have something to fix on your boat, you aren't looking hard enough".  There were lines to replace, electrical issues to troubleshoot, and other minor repairs on top of the items that were never completed by the boatyard.

One of the items on my list was a fiberglass repair.  While en-route I noticed a crack where it appeared the interior and exterior fiberglass skin of the hollow arch on the back of the boat was separating and no longer a single part.  After posing the question to the Leopard owners group I found this is fairly common and the repair isn't particularly difficult.  The repair consists of cutting the crack to make a wider gap and then filling the gap with a thickened epoxy (making a better bond than the original fiberglass resin). I found a pre-thickened epoxy at West Marine as well as syringes and this part of the repair went fairly well.  I injected the epoxy into the crack with a syringe and then sealed it up with cellophane tape as I went to keep the epoxy in place as it cured.

Crack cut open for repair.

Of course, after the epoxy had cured, I needed to refinish the edge of the arch.  I had some color matched gel coat from a couple repairs back when I was in Palm Coast. The color matched stuff wasn't quite the right color since the sun had bleached the gel coat and the panel we could remove for the color match was in a more shaded location.  So, to get a better match, I added some white gel coat and came up with a pretty good color match.  While doing the color matching, I discovered the plastic cup I was using to mix the gel coat are a poor choice and the gel coat started to dissolve the cup and dribble onto the deck of the boat.  I quickly poured my remaining mix into a paper cup to preserve my work and then cleaned up the gel coat that had spilled out of the cup.  Fortunately, this was before I had added the hardener, so cleaning up the dribbled gel coat wasn't too big of a deal.

In order to spray on the gel coat, I should put up some plastic so I wouldn't accidentally spray neighboring boats.  Being a good neighbor, I constructed a plastic tent around the area where I would be working.  I added the hardener to the mix and a little acetone to thin it all for spraying.  About the time I was finishing up the application, in my usual luck, the wind started picking up and shifting direction.  The wind managed to rip one corner of my tent loose and it, naturally, made a beeline for my wet gel coat.  The flapping corner managed to slap the wet gel coat and then apply it to other areas I hadn't intended.  Cue the next scene from Laurel and Hardy.

After re-securing the tent corner I quickly grabbed a rag with some acetone to remove the unintended gel coat application.  While cleaning up, the tent came loose again and while fighting with it, I dropped my rag full of acetone...right onto the name we applied to the boat during the renaming ceremony.  In addition to cleaning and thinning gel coat, acetone apparently does a really good job of removing the color from vinyl lettering. As a result, our 10 month old lettering was now ruined. I finished cleaning up the errant gel coat and the smear of color from the lettering that made its way across the adjacent surfaces. I tried applying a bit more gel coat, using a brush, to the area that was thinned in the plastic tent attack, but brushing on gel coat doesn't produce a nice even coat.  I gave up, removed the tent, and allowed the gel coat to cure.  Not a very good start to my first gel coating attempt.

After a couple of hours, I noticed that the gel coat wasn't curing particularly well.  By this point it was getting cold and dark, so I thought maybe the cold and damp air was inhibiting its progress and it would cure overnight.  But somehow, given the way the day had gone thus far, I had a feeling that may not work.  So, that evening I researched how to deal with gel coat curing problems.

If you are unfamiliar with gel coat, it is a rather strange substance to use for a coating as it can only fully cure when air is absent...not a great characteristic when using it here on planet earth (unless you are applying it to the inside of a mold that will be covered with something else).  To combat this, they make a version of gel coat with a "wax".  As the gel coat starts setting up, the wax works itself to the surface and provides the needed barrier to the air so the stuff will properly cure.  At least that is the theory.

I don't know if it was the fact my gel coat was about 8 months old, or if I failed to mix it properly (after shaking the can for about a half hour), but it seems that the "wax" wasn't doing its job in my application and the gel coat was still not cured by the next morning.  To try and salvage my already somewhat messed up gel coat, I ran around town looking for a chemical called poly vinyl alcohol (PVA or mold release).  This stuff, when sprayed on gel coat, acts like the wax is supposed to act by blocking the air.  I applied it to the top of the gel coat, and then for good measure, covered it all with plastic wrap in hopes it would cure.

Finally, after letting it sit for much of the day so the warmer daytime temperatures and lack of air would give the stuff the best chance possible, it did cure.  Now I had cured, albeit a terribly uneven, coat of gel coat.  After sanding the stuff down to a somewhat more even surface, there are some pretty thin spots but at least the repair is coated.  At some point I will have to readdress this gel coat and make it a better looking repair, but I think I've had enough of gel coat for now.  If/when I do, I think I will use the PVA and not assume that the wax will work. And on the bright side, the color match is much better than many of the prior repairs you can find on the boat.

Fixed, for the most part.

Not being very successful with the gel coat, I turned to another repair...my outboard engine.  Thanks to the previous owner leaving old gas in the motor, it has never run very well.  So, I started looking into what it would take to clean and rebuild the carburetor (the necessary task when you let gasoline sit unused in a carburetor for a long time).  While working with the engine, I noticed that I had failed to reconnect the shift rod when I had replaced the impeller about 6 months ago.

Well, in the 6 months since that repair, the brass nut and steel bar had made an excellent demonstration of dissimilar metal corrosion and had stuck themselves together.  I tried using penetrating oil to work the nut loose, but ended up breaking the shifting rod while trying to get the nut to budge.  Ugh.  I find a parts catalog on the internet and order the replacement bar and nut.  The parts are only $25 so I consider myself lucky that the mistake of not reconnecting the bar wasn't more costly.

Of course, my luck din't last very long.  After the parts arrived, I put the engine up on the cockpit table and begin the "surgery" to replace the rod.  I pull the lower unit, remove the carburetor and finally manage to get the bar free from the other linkage.  But the bar won't come out of its channel along the back edge of the motor leg.  The rod has a bend at the top end and in the engineers apparently thought it would be funny to make the hole the bar passes through just slightly smaller than the bent part of the bar.  The only other way to extract the shift rod is by removing the entire engine (power head) from the cowling and leg assembly and pull the rod out from the top.  Since I don't have much experience with outboard motors, I decide that completely disassembling the motor to remove it was beyond my current capabilities.  I resign myself to taking the motor to a shop so they can replace the rod and I put everything back together to make sure all the parts get to the shop.

That's two failed repairs and one new bit of damage.  Not exactly the direction I want to go.  And it all had me feeling a bit down. I'm feeling better now, and making some progress in the right direction...but the details of that will have to wait for the next post.