Moving along

My friend Paul came down to the warehouse with me yesterday morning to help haul Ms. Bettencourt out on the pad for a scrub down.

A lot of sanding dust came off in the wash. Next, I'll be masking the window gaskets, rub rail and assorted fittings in preparation for spot priming.

The boat looks kind of strange to me without its teak cabin top rails, anchor platform and forward railings.

Paul Creighton photos

Also on the list of stuff to do is touching up various scrapes and dings on the hull. That big scrape is from running over a wing dam downstream last April. The only damage was paint removal. The hull is 8 mm thick in this area. The gelcoat under the antifouling paint was hardly scratched.



(You can click on a photo to see more detail).


The weather forecast is for some (relatively) cool weather over the next few days. I hope to get a lot done during that period.

Too much heat, too little light

But work is proceeding on Ms. Bettencourt's topside paint job anyway. Light is a problem. The one-part epoxy Interlux primer and Brightside finish coat paint I will be using cannot be applied in direct sunlight. There are no functioning overhead lights in the building. I have found that if I arrive on the jobsite before 9 a.m. EDT, I can get only barely adequate working light on the boat's starboard side.

Here's what it looked like in the old building at 0840 on a recent morning. Both 12-foot roll-up doors were open.









Outside the building at about the same time of day looked like this. East is to the right in this photo. This patch of shade was largely gone by noon, at which time the temperature was 91F. Humidity is usually stifling by this time of day too.

So, surface preparation work continues inside. The Interlux Surfacing Putty seems to be working well as a filler for deck and cabin tops imperfections. It does not shrink too much and is relatively easy to sand.



Because of the light situation, I often find myself working with a shop light in one hand and an electric sander or a paint scraper in the other. This technique is a little dicey when standing on a ladder, but I am making progress nevertheless. Most of the pre-painting work is complete.

One early morning in the next few days, I expect to hook the trailer up and haul the rig out into that little patch of transitory shade. That will give me a space to hose off the sanding dust and inspect the work in better light. While it's outside, I'll scrub the spots on the hull that need touch up painting.

After that, the process will be to paint outside while the shade lasts, then push back into the inside bay where the day's paint can dry overnight. Then pull her out the next morning, paint in the shade, then push her back -- for as long as it takes to finish the job.



Work days will be short, so I have no idea at this time how many in-out-in cycles be required.

Did I mention that this building is unoccupied? It is at the end of a long dead-end road with a levee on one side and dense river bottomland jungle on the other. It is a spooky place to work alone.

Which is all the more incentive to get 'er done.



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If anyone has been curious ...

... about the inactivity on this site, here's an explanation: Ms. Bettencourt is on the hard in an unused warehouse not far from the river. The cabin tops and decks need to be repainted. Over the last couple of months, I have stripped off  her deck rails and hardware and sanded all loose paint from the weather decks.

Much of the exterior teak is in the shop at home, getting refinished (ever so gradually).

The average daytime temperature around here for the last month or six weeks has been in the 90s. Motivation to work diminished as temperatures went up. Also, it is lonely in that warehouse and I can only listen to NPR on my portable radio for so long. Those are my excuses, and I'm sticking with them.

I did work for a couple of hours early this morning before knocking off around 10 to pick up friends and make it to the Fourth of July barbecue at the American Legion Post. This morning's work consisted of repairing fiberglass injuries on the cabin tops. I am using a product that's new to me: Interlux Surfacing Putty. It goes on easy enough.  Yet to be determined is how easy or hard it sands and how much it shrinks when it dries.

If things go as expected, I'll be back on the job tomorrow. I hope to finish the surface prep and priming in another week or 10 days.

The light in the warehouse is very poor, even with the two 12-foot roll-up doors full open.

 It may be necessary to pull the rig outside to see well enough to apply the top coats of paint, then to push it back into the warehouse quickly after each coat so the finish can dry in the shade. This work will have to be done between sunrise and about noon, after which the warehouse shadow on the outside area in which I will be working will give way to blistering hot direct sunlight.

The  target date for trailering the boat to Savannah is July 28.

That may be optimistic.