Project Log: Friday,
February 21, 2014
Earlier in the week, I continued work on the
newly-stripped handrails, starting with a sealer coat of
varnish and followed by additional coats, one per day,
on both sides and all edges.
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Wednesday
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Thursday
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Friday
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Hoping to continue varnish work on the bulwarks and
rubrails, I started off sanding, vacuuming, and
solvent-washing the planks so they'd be ready for
varnish when I was. I managed to drop a gallon of
paint thinner on the floor, making a fine mess.
However, although the prep got done, I didn't manage to
get back to them before the end of the day.
For now, however, I had enough buildup on the caprails,
which meant I could move on with my main goal:
installing the pulpits and stanchions.
Apparently I was in a clumsy mode, because I dropped a
pile of lifeline stanchions as I was bringing them to
the boat. This shattered several of the faded and
UV-baked plastic top fittings on the stanchions, which I
found less than pleasing. So before I had hardly
even gotten started, I had to scramble and search for
replacement tops, as I had to know whether I should
continue installing these stanchions or whether I had to
move in another direction. These stanchions
wouldn't have been easily replaced, as they were quite
short (thanks to the sturdy bulwarks), and each was
welded to its base at a specific angle to keep the
stanchions essentially vertical when attached to the
well-sheered caprail. |
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In all, I'd shattered three of the stanchion tops,
leaving five unscathed (the aftermost set--numbers 9 and
10 near the cockpit--featured a different top style).
Fortunately, I found some new tops that I could live
with; it's not as if the old plastic tops were anything
to write home about, though I would have preferred to
have them all intact. In the event, I ordered
eight of the new stainless tops, which would fit over
the stanchion tubes, since I couldn't very well leave
three one way and five another, then tried to put the
irritation behind me and move on with the installation.
I started with the bow pulpit. In this
instance--and in all instances--I slightly repositioned
the bases vis-a-vis the original locations, since I knew
there were several old fastener studs still in place
beneath the caprail that I'd been unable to remove
originally (leaving cut-off remnants in place).
The original construction provided aluminum plates on
the undersides of the bulwark tops, into which the
pulpit and stanchion fasteners could be tapped, since
there was no access to these areas from beneath.
After repositioning the pulpit, I drilled and tapped new
holes, and secured the pulpit with new fasteners and
plenty of sealant, then cleaned up the excess. |
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From here, I continued aft, eventually installing all
ten lifeline stanchions, five per side. In each
case, I slightly repositioned the bases so I could drill
new fastener holes, taking care to keep the old holes
covered by the bases. While technically these
installations were not difficult, it was just one of
those days where nothing really clicked, and I felt the
installations took a long time, and each was like
pulling teeth. |
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After managing--again--to let a container of paint
thinner fall from my hands, this time in the cockpit, I
decided to finish up the installation with the stern
pulpit another time. In all these years, while I'd
come close to dropping containers of solvent every so
often, I'd never actually done so, and here I did it
twice in one day. (Never mind the stanchions.)
That's just the sort of day it was, I guess, but at
least the stanchions were installed. Onwards and
upwards. |
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Total Time Today: 7 hours
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