I [heart] the heat gun

 Merciful Jesus the heat gun portion of our show is over, at least for the time being. It has taken me this long to hack all the paint from the bulwark and the moulding below that, and then I had to take off the brass rail strakes (how I did not break them is a miracle) and whack off all that crud underneath (and did you notice how cavalierly and with what panache I am now slinging about the nautical terminology? Who knew I would ever get to use the phrase “rail strake” in a sentence?).  Anyway, Paul brought over the detail sander and I must say it is a dandy thing, and so much easier to sand now that 90% of the paint is off.  I can tell that the lower rub rail was varnished, and if I am feeling frisky I will try to get all the paint off that and see if it can be re-varnished. Paul just looks at me with one eye shut and a snide grin when I say these things. 

I'm trying to scrape off to about 5" below the last rub rail just to have a space to work in on the black 

(and soon to be red) part. It was coming off so easy here I just went down one whole plank.

But Maynard Bray says in “Painting and Varnishing” (which Don sent to me last week) to not let the wood sit too long before you prime and paint it, so I’m stopping here and sanding what I’ve done, then painting it before I tackle the topside.  Which I have to say is scads easier than the black stuff was.  The paint just peels right off.  Which may not be saying a good thing about the previous green paint job.  But the black part--phenomenal.

Boy, it looks like crap now but I think it will feel much better when all this is over!

Before any painting gets done, though, Paul has to come over with about 5 gallons of epoxy and a million wood plugs, since I seem to keep knocking them out of the planking.  I do hope Uncle Jack is not rolling over in his . . . mud flat, I guess, off of Ram Island.