The incantation of whining has forced progress on the deck

I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday.

It looks as if nobody else is going to help with Jeff Brown.  There he sits in my yard, waiting to go into the water, and the days have been gorgeous!  So much time he could have spent on his mooring, being the envy of tourists, fiberglass boat owners, and lovers of old Noank sloops.  (the Mysic wooden boat show is this weekend—he should be out there at the mouth of the river showing off!) As a matter of fact, Chip Anderson’s boat Winsome just got an article published on it in the paper. Chip and I are in the same boat (ahahahaha) in that Winsome isn’t in the water yet either.  Chip says that the designer of Jeff Brown (back in 1888) was also the designer for the plans for Winsome, which makes sense since they are both the “Noank sloop” model, quite famous here.  But who gets the glory?  Not Jeffie and I, noooooooo.

So yesterday when Paul came over I gave him an earful about not having enough time (which I don’t), and it being too hot to sand the deck (which it is) and that none of the sanders worked well enough to get it smooth (which they don’t) and the heat gun wouldn’t get the paint off easily enough (which it didn’t) and that I was just about as sick as I could be with this project (which I am) and what was he going to do about it.

Actually the coup de grace came the day before yesterday when, fighting with the 8” disc sander, it flew out of my hands and bit me on the leg.  That was the end of the 8” disc sander.

Or so I thought.

Paul is an old water rat and nothing fazes him, especially a hysterical woman whining about a boat.  He then said “Well, if it were me I would have just slapped a coat of paint on it and put it in the water, but you wanted it all smooth . . .” at which point I wanted to smack him but I refrained, and said “Is that really okay?  To just paint it even if it’s lumpy?”  He said “Fine with me.”

I also asked if I could sand and prime in sections so I wouldn’t get too discouraged, since the frigging paint peels right up again if you leave your nice sanded work for a day without priming.

He said sure.

He also said he’d come by this weekend and “see what he could do” in re: the 8” disc sander which he thinks will work like a charm on this deck.

I followed him down the driveway vowing that I could undo his cheery and positive attitude if I tried hard enough, but he just chuckled and got in his truck.

So last night I dragged all 3 sanders, Papa Bear, Medium 5” Bear, and Detail Bear, up with me on the deck along with the primer, a broom, and a dental pick, and, holding all VERY firmly, sanded the bejeezus out of the area from the prow to the whatsis—the metal bar that holds the jib line and lets it slide back and forth.

Bow not so bad.  Note the whatsis.  What IS that thing called???

You can see what kind of a fun time Jeff is going to have with me at the tiller, can’t you?

Anyway, when I was done I was quite proud—the sanding job proved way smoother than I thought it would be (I made sure to use "Mr Green"--an 8" disk so nubby I thought it was going to cut right through to the hold), a section was done, and I am looking forward to section #2—all the way to the front of the hatchway.  Then on to caulking, which I am getting quite good at, and doesn't involve any round 8" discs leaping out of my hands and aiming for my shins.

Paul has also promised to bring paint soon so I can do the parts he is not farting around with (like the stem).

I realize that I do this a lot, this response of mine—it has been a lifelong habit—scream and kick and whine and say I  can’t do it it’s too hard, then breathe a little, look at the thing again, wade in, and it’s never as bad as I think it will be.  But why do I still need the screaming and kicking part?  It’s almost like a ritual, a spell.  The incantation of whining, to insure a positive outcome.

There must be a pill for this.

Transom almost done . . . and a visit from the Master

It has been a rainy week, but a Sisyphus-like despair more than anything has kept me from picking up the enormously heavy Bosch 5” sander and re-sanding for the millionth time the battered hull of poor Jeffie.  However, this weekend brought progress, if not joyful things.

I finally stripped, sanded and primed (1st coat) the $%$#@! transom (thank you Maynard Bray and the how-to book of Sanding and Painting for the Truly Anal-Retentive), and now the trowel cement must do its magic. 

Paul has reversed his earlier dictum of “no sanding after the trowel cement goes on,” which I ignored anyway since I found that there were spots I had not alcoholed off that could be sanded/feathered right out.  Plus, I had to put another wad of it in all the seams.

 The four errant planks have been re-fastened to the stem, but Paul now has to put the cotton back in and apparently do it on the other side—which I conveniently troweled right over.  He tried to teach me how to “listen” for loose planks with a plastic (electrician’s) hammer, but I did not get the hang of it (apparently safe-cracker is not a good choice for me for future employment).

After I fill up the cracks in the transom, there’s nothing left for it but to tackle the evil deck, since I have been deserted by my one helper and my tentative second helper has only given me a “maybe” on Facebook.

The good thing about the deck is that gravity can do some of the work, and the sanding should not be so bad.  Except for the bulwark.  That way madness lies.

Paul has been vacuuming out the keel, which in my mind points to a reefing out of the keel soon.

If Jeff does not go in by August I’ll fill up the hold with water and drown myself.

Interlux: trowel cement as old as Jeff Brown

The wonderful thing about Jeffie is that it is being fixed up with things that have been lying in boathouses and in woodshops and in cellars since Dad ran Spicer's Marina in the '70s.  So when these rusty cans of goo show up on my doorstep I feel a tinge of recognition, in a way I never would for anything out of a West Marine catalog, and the smell of brain-cell-killing vapor takes me back to those many summers I spent underneath hulls slopping red copper bottom paint on 40-foot "yachts" for 3 bucks an hour.

The term "trowel cement" had a faintly non-nautical whiff to it, however, so I Googled Interlux trowel cement and found this super cute ad for it, c. 1964

and another, from 1946 made me take heart that I would be almost ready for race day if I used it. And have great hair!

Plus, the Wooden Boat Forum had a plea from someone so desperate to find more (since it is no longer made) that I figure when I'm done I can auction off this can for thousands!

Paul, AWOL but in communication, says that this will also push out of the seams when the boat swells, which is good.  But those ads also said that it was good for touching up dings  and gouges, so I went a bit overboard with it.

Still looks the same, but not as many . . . gaps.

Primed and . . . oh who knows?

Paul had said that all the imperfections show when you prime it.  I thought, that can't be true; the primer will hide things.
Well, friends, the primer does not hide things.
The primer shows you what a derelict you are, even if you've sanded the poor thing within an inch of its life.

I used the hand long blade sander, the 5" orbital sander, the 4" square hand sander, the detail sander , the filler, the epoxy, the heat gun . . . I used everything except dynamite and what do I get?

I get "eh."

 Note the big-ass hole still missing a dutchman.
Actually it looks okay for a "10-foot paint job," as Don would say.

But I am going to cheat.
Tomorrow I am going to fill the little puckers and cracks I had not noticed, sand them down, and prime again.
I do not think that is breaking any maritime epoxy laws.

Paul has said that now I should put on the seam compound.
But the compound he left me is brown, and says "for under water use only."  And unless Jeff Brown heads straight to the bottom when it launches, the topsides are above the waterline.

So is this the right stuff or the wrong stuff?  If I use it the poor thing will look like it has convict stripes.  I called Paul yesterday to find out how to use it.  I got the vague notion that paint thinner and a rag are  key.

Cripes, I'm going to have to call him again.

As you can see, I still haven't stripped the transom.  Plus there are little rot-holes near the stern that I have to fill with epoxy.  As my father used to say right before he went out on each charter, "Oh, boat, boat, hang together."

All’s Fair

   I am in love with fairing compound, West Marine's “featherlight” compound to be exact.  But apparently I suck at its application and so I keep sanding it off, and trying again. 

 I have learned that trying to make a boat “fair” is a mathematical problem that only the gods can solve.  From what I can gather a boat is fair when its curves are the exact curves that it was born with, before time a tide pitted and warped the wood, before chunks got taken out by rot or bouncing off a bell buoy, or before an over-eager lass with a heat gun scraped it down to below the top of the plank. (Hey, it can happen.  A couple of times.)

I’ve also learned that the more you sand a boat and then look it over, the more you realize you need to sand it more because you did such a bad job the first, second and third time.

This week was really wet and rainy so not much done.  But hopefully I have put the fairing compound away for good as of today, and tomorrow Jeffie will get the sanding of his life, and then get primed. This weekend!

Paul is in Maine this week, but swears on all that is holy that when he gets back he will put in the Dutchman and reef out the keel seam to put in new caulk.

There are just some tricks that this old dog is better off not learning.