Touch-ups, stubborn screws and ceiling planks

I was not fully satisfied with final effect of cabin sole epoxy coating: there were small discontinuities in epoxy on plank seams which would gather dirt during service and possibly cause problems.

During the week I coated end grain and underside of all panels with additional two layers of epoxy. Now it was only these imperfections left. I’ve decided to fill voids with thickened epoxy, taping everything around for easier clean-up.

After curing the fillets were a bit proud above adjacent surfaces so it called for sanding and one more epoxy coating.

I lightly abraded everything with 320 grid, giving some hand touch to fillets and valleys on plank joints, until all surfaces became milk-white. Thick epoxy coat will follow in the evening, covering everything with nice, smooth layer. That will make it four coats on the surface and three coats on the underside and end grain. That should do the trick.

Next step was to remove two stubborn screws which broke when I was trying to unscrew them after gluing. At first I tried drilling into them with small drill and then remove them by counter-clockwise tapered drills. That did not work, probably because stainless steel screws are thin and very hard to drill into. Besides - they became permanently glued to surrounding wood.

Another approach is to hammer them out. I drilled small openings around the bottom exit point, to inhibit wood rising when I hammer from another side. Screws sharp tips became visible.

Simple set of tools to do the job.

With just a few smacks the screw remainings went out!

The exit “wound” was finished with conical drill - it will be mostly drilled out by coming brass tube but if not then it will be easier to fill with mahogany putty.

As cabin sole is not yet in place I cannot proceed with cabin ladder renovation. Instead I took the job of refreshing cabin ceiling planks.

They look ugly, with scratches and bubbles of linseed oil hardened on the surface. The surface finish has wrinkles and is rough.

Nothing one would like to put his face against while sleeping. If they come back into the main cabin they need to look good.

I attacked them first with orbital sander and grid 80 paper. After a short while the paper was clogged. I switched to grid 40 but the result was the same. Well, I should have known that.
I tried with hot-air gun, expecting that the varnish will lift but instead it boiled and formed sticky, gummy clumps. So it is not the varnish indeed - it seems it’s boiled linseed oil which they used.

Well, for that job sharp blade is the best. Trying with smoothing plane did not yield good results as planks are concave or convex - they are bent on the freeboard. Situation called for scraping blades.

I started with wide blade, removing most of the finish, then switched to smaller blade and worked diagonally. Work proceeded very fast, with hissing sound as during hand plaining. What a joy compared to noise of orbital sander!

Either they were stained or 60 years has caused linseed oil to darken. I removed the weathered surface up to the clean wood. After that I switched back to orbital sander with 40 grid, to even out the surface and remove remaining stains.

That went quickly now - paper was changed frequently as it was getting dull but no more clogging. After cleaning all planks from starboard side I changed to 80 grid, followed by smoothing with 240 grid.

There are still many boards to clean but these are now ready to receive coats of Owatrol D1, followed by D2 varnish.

Bronze screws from Toplicht have not arrived yet so no hurry with this job.

It became late so I called it a day. As a last job I re-circulated oil on the boat, finding and fixing the problem with canister’s valve. Good that I placed a bucket under it last time - the container had 3 litres of oil from the leaking valve which would otherwise be lost.

The job for the evening is to epoxy-coat sole boards. Tomorrow I will install brass tubes and finally put cabin sole where it belongs.