Day 78: Hull Primer

We laid the primer on the hull today.

It was the last forecasted sunny day for a while so we had to go for it.  Our shop will not heat up enough to spray the auto paint unless the sun is out to warm the metal siding on the shop.

Here is our paint system.

Pressure pot and HVLP gun.

The compressed air goes though this thingy and the water gets filtered out.

Air compressor 1

Air compressor 2

Before

After

Our paint is still not going on smooth... so a few days of sanding for me.  I hope we can work out the issues before the color and clear coat go on.

Before

After

Ammos

Inner gunwale scarf

Day 77: Gunwale blocks

Today the gunwale blocks were glued on.  You'll have to take my word on it, as I forgot the camera at home.

The epoxy on the oars and inner gunwale need another day to cure.  Very low temps at night here are the cause of the slow cure rate.

Coated the edges of the spare wood/boatman's well cover w/ epoxy and wood powder mix.

Day 76: Oars2

Put some glass on the end of the oar blades.  Also sanded them to 220grit and cleaned up the pencil marks and black marks from car rack.

Sanded and epoxied the blocks for the southco latches.  These will provide a catch ledge for the latches.

Glued the scarf for the inner gunwales.  Most of the time was spent rearranging the shop to make space for them.

The shop was a bit cold so I heated up the scarf ends for a couple hours with an electric heater.  Then applied plain epoxy to the joint.  Then laid the glue.

Also, went back into the hatches and sanded some flaws and put a second coat of hardened polyurethane down.

Day 75: Oars

Went into Seattle to finish the oars.

My Dad has done everything on them.  Just a little final shaping to do.

We put a slight bevel on the blade.  Making it a little more wing-like.

Tom sanded all the plane marks and fine tuned the shape.

At lunch we went to a leather wholesaler to get the leather for the oar sleeves.  My Dad found a beautiful piece; a stiff 1/8"thick,  medium sized hide.  It will be plenty to form the sleeves and the oar stop.

We also tried to get the oar handles nice and round.  When the oar went on the lathe they came out a bit oval.  They are pretty circular now.

We did all this work at Seattle Stair.  They do incredible spiral staircases.  My Dad introduced me to all the talented craftsmen there.  

They're not just old-school there.  They're old-world.  The techniques have been passed down from the ages.  

...and I thought making oars were tough.

We loaded the oars up for the trip back to the island.

That night I dropped off the oars at the Whidbey shop.  I check out the   paint job while I was there.  It looks pretty good.  Will probably have to do a second coat on some of the textured areas but the rest should be good as is.

Day 74: Deck Paint

Today was a painting day.  The weather stayed warm, the sun came out and we had the window we needed to make some progress.

My Dad came to the Island and we got right to it.

First we rolled paint onto the textured surfaces.  That went really fast and easy.

We took our time to dial in the sprayer and then went full steam ahead.

Tom sprayed the boat while I rolled paint onto the texture on the hatch  lids.

Then Tom sprayed the hatch lids.

We first sprayed the underside then set the lids atop pins for the top coat.

After the paint went on we peeled off the tape.

And now the deck is painted.  Its starting to feel like we just might finish this thing!

I'm psyched on the deck color... yellow!  I had that song; keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side, stuck in my head while we were laying this color down.  I think I'm gonna definitely have to change the name of the boat from Arcturus to Zizumara.  This wild color is screaming to be called the Ziz.  Besides the "Arcturus" is way too serious of a name for this first attempt at a boat.  I'm sure the Zizu will bounce off rocks, while the Arcturus would crumple...  or maybe thats just the Xylene talking.
P.S. Use more thinner than they list on the can.