An update

The last time we went out to work on the boat was July 7. The first thing I did was take photos of all the deck hardware to document how it was set up, so we'll be able to put everything back. Then we started taking stuff off.



The picture above was taken before we started working... it shows what we accomplished on the previous visit, with a paint scraper and a palm sander. It was surprisingly easy to take the old, flaking paint off the topsides. The bottom is going to be a little more difficult.


This is a view showing the keel winch and its mount. One of the bolts holding it on is frozen, so it hasn't been removed yet. The wood behind it is only still there because it won't come out until the winch is removed. We're going to replace all of the wood with something nicer -- probably cherry plywood.


The next stip after stripping the deck hardware will be to clean and sand the interior, then prime and paint it.

More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/gerald.belton/DolceFarNiente02

Log Entry: Money Spent

We made a shopping trip to Wal-Mart on Saturday to take back the fiberglass restoration compound and the sticker off we had previously purchased (and forgot to blog - oops!). Once we found out about the BAD paint job on the boat (we found that out when I attempted to gently peel the old registration number stickers off the boat and I pulled off a chunk of paint about 2" square and that was also when we saw for the first time the paint runs and bubbles), we felt we needed a sander and a scraper worse than we needed restoration compound. That's mainly because the color of the gel coat under that bad white paint job - that I swear must be house paint as bad as it looks - is this lovely shade of green that reminds me all too much of what seasickness must look like.

So, we took those things back, for a credit of $14.56, and purchased a new palm sander, a scraper and some quarter sheets of sand paper. We got the cheap sander so that if it gets full of paint dust and burns out, we haven't lost much. Here's what we have so far:

palm sander: - $13.88
60 grit sand paper - $1.43
100 grit sand paper for Gerald's B&D sander - $3.97
paint scraper - $4.24
2 cloth respirators - $1.88 X 2

Grand total this trip (including tax): $29.33
Minus items taken back: $14.56
Net spent this trip: $14.77

I also purchased some rags and cleaners for the inside, including 2 gallons of bleach. I haven't blogged this yet, but will add these costs in soon.

The good news is - we can get going on the scraping of the old paint. She's going to be beautiful when we're done with her!