Today is ideal – not a cloud in sight. I have much to accomplish today in order to take the day off tomorrow – such as getting payroll done a day early. I imagine I would be drawn and quartered if I were to forget that!
The pace doesn’t seem as frantic now – just little pockets of perturbation here and there. We did blow a tire on the small travel lift which will set back the launches on all those small boats on the other side of the creek. As you may guess, you can’t go up to Walmart or Goodyear and pick up a travel lift tire. We have received one quote so far and maybe forgotten by the other two companies we asked for quotes from.
As a follow up to yesterday’s post, here is the repaired rubstrake.
We ended up using bronze machine screws (bolts) threaded in instead of regular screws. I still wanted to use stainless which could have easily been hidden in the bronze rail with my little secret trick, but I met with a bit of opposition.
We also got the boot stripe tape repaired on the little Glacier Bay. The shade was a bit off – most likely due to the “fade factor” but the owner was alright with a color variation. As he said: it’ll look better than it does now. From 10 feet away (or from the cockpit) you don’t even notice it.
The after picture didn’t come out as well but here it is after.
We also did some small fixes elsewhere on the boat.
As many times as I walked by this boat I never notice the anchor damage to the gelcoat. There’s no use fixing this unless a different anchor roller is installed that is maybe longer and won’t allow the flukes to come in contact with the platform.
Kevin had to show me the new alternative to the chamois – the California style squeegee. This little tool was awesome and got the hull totally dry with one swipe.
If we need paint colors we can’t identify, we can just call in the local paint company and they come down with the portable color computer and can match the color in any kind of paint that we need. It also helps match faded colors.
The front is still hanging around with slight chance of storms but it should clear off and be beautiful for my day off. You’ll probably notice I mention that every day now since it is very important to me. I don’t like celebrating birthdays because it just means I am another year older but it is a damned good excuse for a long weekend.
Later this morning we will be getting back to other jobs but we are finishing up on the Newman and the surveyor showed up early and is waiting to get on the boat. I’m not sure what exactly was accomplished since I get that kind of information off the daily time sheets – which were either scant or non-existent for this project.
Even though this is still a new boat, when a boat sits for a long time things just stop working for no apparent reason. Also little things happen like moisture that put some surface rust on the mounting brackets on the water heater. It has never even heated water yet.
There was also a few paint touch ups in various places throughout the boat – we’re talking artist brush touch ups though. We had a custom paint color mixed to match the gelcoat that would dry fast – we’re under the gun here.
And Carlos got the prize of the week by finding John’s Ol’ Salty hat. He looks like he should be hawking fish sticks.
We did spend some time on the Betram in the morning. It is really starting to shape up now. I believe we will be spraying the engine boxes but everything else will be brushed. It is all primed now and the painting should begin this afternoon.
Just a note for those of you with Grand Banks. The rubstrips are usually held on with bronze screws. The screws closest to the water will start to corrode eventually and have virtually no sheer strength left. It is very easy for travel lift slings to actually move the rail when the screws stop holding the rail.
We started off with some thunderstorms this morning – loud boomers! It seems to have abated – at least for the time being. It’s mostly all hands aboard on the Jarvis Newman today which is inside out of the weather. Willy “pulled a Willy” today – that’s where it got it’s name. At least one other guy was a no show today as well. And oh, by the way, I’m off on Friday for my annual birthday off. I started something with that since now a lot of people want to take their birthdays off. My bad. There will probably be something posted though because it’s the internet – you can work from anywhere!
A lot of bottom work was going on. I counted 5 people working on it at one point.
One of the main projects was to build up and shape the front of the rudder which actually came in with a large flat leading edge. As you may guess that is not aquadynamically correct (my word!). We decided to smooth up and recondition the whole rudder.
To shape the leading edge we had to have some material we could shape so we added some – most of which would be ground off to create a proper leading edge – bullet shaped.
There was also a bit of wiring, electronics work and plumbing to do. Some of it was survey related and some was just reinventing the wheel work.
During the grinding there was quite a bit of fiberglass dust so we had to bring out the big guns. Just don’t get too close to this puppy!
We did work on other things during the course of the day. One boat with huge Suzuki outboards was getting serviced by our part-time outboard mechanic.
And the Bertram is starting to take shape now. You can see what it will look like with the lower molding white instead of teak. Less nuisance trim is always a good thing when you have to maintain varnish.
Just for fun and for all my shop buddies I found this nice little Shop Vac video you’re sure to like.
It was a beautiful weekend – filled with tasks that momma wanted done. I don’t know who started the “mother of your children” crap for husbands to get pulled into the Mother’s Day scam but there I was. While scrubbing the green from the siding on the north side of the house I was thinking that this was a lot like having a boat. Some tasks which take a bit of time don’t get noticed when you do them – they only get noticed if you don’t do them.
We’re starting in the week with a couple of rainy days. Friday however was a beautiful and we did get to launch some boats.
Also on Friday we worked with the Pettit Rep who is making a movie of using Easypoxy top sides paint. We may be famous after this! The movie covers a wide spectrum of products that are used including the Biowash. Of course, I had to insinuate myself into the movie at several points and on at least one occasion I had a cold one in my hand – ’cause that’s what average Joe is going to be doing.
The purpose of the video is to show the average boat owner how to paint their own boat using the “roll and tip” method. I’ve seen some of his work and it looks sprayed. Even though he trained Angus in the method, we were priming it and the primer just doesn’t flow like top coat will. We will be posting the video or a link to the video when it is done but in the mean time you will be able to watch the progress here.
On the Bertram they finally moved up – out of the stones that is. They got smart and laid out all the small parts on some scaffolding. That has to be better on the back as well as the knees!
We had our own surveyor come in to look over the OYA-Newman that we recently sold. The buyer his surveyor coming in this week and we used our surveyor’s notes to fix anything that is likely to pop up.
One of the items was a note that the caulking at the eyebrows, while still flexible, had surface cracking. We dug out the hardened surface and added fresh caulking. It did take about 4 times as long to tape as it did to caulk but that is a common occurrence in a lot of repair work.
There was also some lost adhesion on the engine room insulation. It got pretty stinky in there with all the adhesive fumes being sprayed. The one guy who elected not to wear a mask had to go home early with an upset tummy. Imagine that – leaving early on a Friday.
Just as a point of interest. I love my brad nailer and use it all the time. I saw this nail gun and now need to get it as well.
It’s Mother’s Day weekend. Also it is drop dead delivery weekend for several boaters whom I can only assume are taking their mothers out for the day. I’ll let you in on a little secret – since I wore shorts today (it is spring you know) I have my little heater running under my desk. What a wuss! Hopefully it will be a little warmer this weekend as I am cooking my mother-in-law dinner in lieu of taking her boating and we were planning on having dinner outside.
Work continues on the Bertram. They took the panels off the boat to finish them because we don’t need to mess up those teak decks. For some reason they elected to work in the stones instead of moving them to a bench. Whatever floats your boat I guess.
And speaking of working in the stones, Kevin didn’t have much choice as someone had broken the drain valve off the compressor and elected to ignore it rather than fix it. Why fix it until we need it?
The reason we needed the compressor was to shoot the high build primer on the Legacy. Since this was not a critical shoot we were able to do it in without being in the tent. This coat will be sanded smooth and coated with Awlgrip 545 primer.
And speaking of priming, the Honda outboard that Pat was working on the other day had all the paint flaking off the cowling. We ordered some of the Honda paint but needed to sand and prime for the finish coat.
Anything Can Happen Friday
Earlier I forgot to post a nice photo that was sent to me of our marina. Is this a beautiful photo?
The majority of countries that celebrate Mother’s Day do so on the second Sunday of May. On this day, it is common for Mothers to be lavished with presents and special attention from their families, friends and loved ones. But it wasn’t always this way… read more.
Sunny and breezy today. We have a lot of people milling about out in the yard already this morning – some picking up boats, sales people and perhaps just some gawkers! The Jabsco rep saw my post on the accumulator and brought to my attention a new line of pumps that Jabsco sells which don’t require an accumulator at all. The pump itself is variable speed and only runs at the speed it needs to maintain constant pressure – which means most of the time it is quieter than a normal pump since the impeller is barely turning when there is limited demand. This will require a bit more research on my part.
Yesterday was blue day. Kevin shot the two small boat hulls. We still have to do the boot tops white.
It’s hard to get a good photo in the paint tent, there is always an ethereal glow to the photo which I try to take out with my photo editing software. Just take my word, they look pretty darned good.
There always seems to be an unrelenting queue of boats to be polished. Maybe if we weren’t so good at it there wouldn’t be so many!
We have a part-time outboard mechanic now since we seem to have more of them to deal with these days. Pat tackles the emergency jobs that pop up but it takes him away from the other mechanical work that is always lined up.
The Bertram job is moving right along and we are trying hard to meet the owner’s deadline. There is just a lot to do to make this look nice.
If you take a look at the trim that was around the openings you can see there would be way too much time in trying to restore the varnish. We are just planning on painting white although my preference would be to whip out some trim out of King Starboard – forever maintenance free.
The whole bottom trim is also being painted white. You can the varnish on the cap rail has now been built up 2 coats and a final coat will be applied after all the painting is done – since we may need to sand paint splatter at some point (hopefully not, but you never know!)
We got the little Cape Dory launched and the mast standing this morning. It may be a bit windy to put the sails on this morning.
We have a rainy day today – it would have been a good day to sleep late but it didn’t really start until I got here and I haven’t slept past 6 AM since I was in high school. In any case we did not start off the day launching boats first thing. We have one boat I have been trying to get launched for a week so here is another day that it won’t happen. I may go on strike.
Yesterday was beautiful however and we got started on launching and rigging a Cape Dory which came in on a trailer.
The were still masking the Legacy for spraying the primer. I assume we will be finishing the 2 small boats first since we can’t really fit another boat in the tent.
We are working on the cosmetic restoration of the Bertram cockpit area. The coamings required quite a bit of patching and build coats since they obviously had not been properly tended to for – well basically ever.
Pat installed the bilge alarm yesterday. I had shown you the little bracket that is holding the switch but it needed to go down in the dark recesses of the bilge.
And here is the alarm mounted at the helm. Like I mentioned there is only an indicator light on the flybridge which saved the cost of buying another alarm. I’m interested in seeing if you can actually notice the light when it is out in the bright sunshine (not today).
On the same boat the owner had had an insurance survey and the surveyor was not fond of the standard hand pump found in the early GB’s which takes about 7 strokes to pump a gallon. This one does about 11 gallons per minute. You don’t want your arm to fall off if your boat is taking on water!
It’s a beautiful spring day and things seem to be calm today. We are planning a revamp of the Oxford facility which takes a lot of planning, approvals and general hoopla to get anything done – especially in an historic town like Oxford. We also seem to be taking sides in the major controversy regarding the proposed Oxford Pool. You can read more about that if you are interested at the Oxford town website or the Oxford Pool website.
But meanwhile, over in this little town it is business as usual. Pat is installing yet another high water alarm in a GB32. On this one we are adding just a light on the flybridge and putting the alarm down at the lower helm so the owner can hear it if he is sleeping (he must be a lighter sleeper than I.) As you may know, the float switch has to be mounted higher than the primary float switch – you don’t want it to go off in conjunction with the bilge pump!
We have finished chasing cracks in the Legacy are are preparing to spray the high build primer on the repaired areas. This should give us enough thickness to fill any thing we may have missed – sometimes imperfections don’t really show up until the paint goes on and it is good to be able to do some more sanding.
I thought yesterday was going to be blue day but there were a few more details to take care of before the spray – like the rudder which has just enough blue to be obvious.
Last week I showed a pump repair that we experimented with. Needless to say it was a no-go. Instead we are upping the ante and putting a different pump with a larger accumulator tank.
The tank maintains water pressure and limits pump cycling and hammering.
Friday was a horrific day which lead to quite the bacchanal evening of beer. It did de-stress me on Friday evening but I still dreaded coming in here today. My mood has put me in the zero-interest mood for the blog and almost everything else going on around here this morning. It’s amazing how small you feel when you realize no one actually listens to you.
Enough whining this morning – I’m going to work with what I have. We had a real nice Southport 26 in storage which is getting shipped out on a truck today. The owner wanted it launched and commissioned before we put it on the truck. He got lucky and talked to John directly and got what he needed.
The boat started right up and boy is it quiet!
We did get the other boat into the paint tent on Friday but it was amazingly vacant this morning when I went out there.
I was hoping to be able to snap a photo the exact moment that Angus hit the water but he is pretty nimble. On the plus side, this is for the last coat of varnish and he can go back to boats that can be reached by ladders and scaffolding.
I came close to “pulling a Willy” today (calling in too sick to work) except I never go around to doing payroll yesterday – which according to the guys is the only thing I’m good for. The stress of missed deadlines and last minute problems wears on some people whereas some people thrive on the challenge. You can guess which category I fall into. I seem to remember that this is an annual occurrence and only the promise of my day off for my birthday gets me through this period. Please, don’t send presents!
Work continues on the Albin 28. You may remember that I posted a photo of the area where the thru hulls are located that needed repair. This has to be done now – since most of the damage is surface related we used some 3M High-Strength Filler to fix the surface.
I also showed a boat with a lot of flaking and peeling at the water line. This has been hard sanded down, primed with Pettit Tie-Coat and had a good quality ablative paint applied. There are some other areas that need addressing next year but due to budgetary constraints the owner has elected to fix the problems over time. I know the feeling!
We are swapping a stove top for full range on one boat. The cook top was one we had in stock that had seen only limited usage. This only required a few new parts to make this cook top look like it was always in the boat.
We had a customer who just sold his boat and the surveyor thought that one of the cutlass bearings needed replacement because he noticed a little bit of play. John showed them that although both of the shafts are 2″ – they aren’t necessarily exactly 2″.
Anything Can Happen Friday
Don’t have anything real interesting but you will really like this video – I guarantee it!