Winch shelves, deck painting, Owatrol
Finally good weather on my free day!
It’s sunny and warm enough to attempt epoxy gluing so I went to boatyard to accomplish three jobs: glue winch supports, paint the deck and coat ceiling planks with Owatrol D2.
I started early in the morning - there were some jobs to be done before glue can be applied.
First I needed to find exact place where supports will be mounted. Disassembled winch base served as a guide.
I drilled central hole on each shelf to use it as holding support during gluing and to further reinforce the assembly. It will be plugged with mahogany plug so will be hardly visible.
Having the shape copied onto cockpit coamings I started removing varnish in these places - for reliant joint epoxy needs to be applied onto bare wood.
It took me some time with different blades to make the incision - I could not use hot air as I didn’t want to lift varnish in the vicinity. In the end both openings were ready - sanded with 40-grid paper and cleaned with acetone - ready for glue.
All around was taped to minimise the mess inevitable with epoxy work. I used G-Flex WEST epoxy - already thickened - and applied generous amount of glue: it is thick enough to not drip so one can use a lot to make sure that it wets all components properly and will not starve the joint.
Attachment with centre screw has brought pieces together with generous amount of squeeze-out. I allowed thick fillet on top, to close the gap caused by rounded coaming. After some time, when epoxy started to gel, I removed masking tape and voila!
Since the boat hall temperature was just above 5 degrees I used hot-air blower, to speed-up curing process. Jim stayed longer on Kaika so I could leave the blower on until Jim is leaving and switching all off for the night.
I turned to the deck and vacuumed it (again) before painting. There was a lot of fine sand on the deck - it’s dry now and strong winds push the dust everywhere. There were also cat-paw traces on the deck so it needed thorough cleaning before the job.
As with Hempel Primer - also here single can of top coat was enough to cover the whole deck. Top coat is thicker than primer so rolling is more tedious and it’s easy to coat too thick but judging from the amount left in the can I used the same amount as for primer.
The effect is clean and pleasing - I hope I don’t need to apply second coat tomorrow.
I removed the ladder so curious visitors don’t step on the fresh paint.
On my way home I turned to my second workshop, to coat ceiling planks with first layer of Owatrol D2 oil. Compared to boat hall it is much warmer and pleasant to work in my small workshop - semi-transparent walls allow sun in, rising temperature to almost 15 degrees. Greenhouse indeed.
Coating took no time and I headed home.