Mike
07/15/2009, Deltaville, VA

July 12... Deltaville, VA

Our goal for the day was to finish the sanding and get a coat of finish on everything. There were a few hurdles in our way however. One was that we had to quit at 4pm to get cleaned up for dinner with friends at 5. Another was that it was above 90 degrees from 10 am on hitting 94 at 1pm. The last was that there were thunderstorms in the forecast.

After coffee I started sanding. Kathy cleaned up last nights dishes and picked up the boat. Trying to put off sanding until the latest moment, she did another load of laundry. By then it was time for breakfast. After cleaning up the breakfast dishes, we got her set up with a sander.

By lunch time we still had about an hour and a half of sanding and taping ahead of us but finished just as things were beginning to cloud up. We checked the radar and storms were well north of us so we applied a coat of finish to the remaining teak and hoped that it would dry to touch before we got wet.

I don't know if I've discussed the process that we're using so I'll give you the run down.
First I scrape the old finish off the teak. Sometimes a heat gun us used with the scraper sometimes it isn't necessary. Next, we hit the scraped area with a course sanding using either the random orbital or the mouse sander, depending on how much space we have. Then we do some fine sanding and finally we tape the area off. I have a plank between two step ladders and can do an area about 10 feet long at a time.

In three days of work we have done 160 feet of rub rail, 90 feet of toe rail, 60 feet of eyebrow and three of the four hand rails. We have used over 500 feet of masking tape and who knows how many sheets of sand paper.

It did rain but the finish had dried enough by then that if was fine.

We got cleaned up and at 5:00 were picked up by Tom and Cathy from "Perseverance II" and drove about 15 miles to a really nice German restaurant. I had a bratworst sampler plate and Kathy had one of the specials which was a pork shank that had cooked all afternoon. We had a very nice meal and got caught up with Tom and Cathy's adventures getting home. We'll see them again when we get back from Michigan.

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Mike
07/15/2009, Deltaville, VA

July 11th... Deltaville, VA

There is really nothing new with us. It was another day of sanding. Kathy working on the finish sanding of the hand rails and eyebrow while I began the rough sanding and scraping of the port side toe and rub rails. We took a break for breakfast after which Kathy got out the vacuum cleaner for some much needed sawdust removal on the starboard while I continued making a mess on the port.

At some point in mid morning I began the final sanding and taping of the starboard toe and rub rails so that we would be ready to apply finish when the shade reached us at around 3:30.

We did run out of tape and had to make a run into the hardware store. By then it was well after lunch time so we extended our break and I made a conch salad.

After finishing taping, we began applying the first coat of finish. The cockpit portion of the toe rail and rub rails were ready and since they were in the shade we started there and worked around the stern to the starboard side. It took us about an hour and a half to complete the starboard side. By then it was 5pm and time for showers.

I baked some chicken along with some garlic, chicken broth, and artichokes for dinner which we had with some broccoli that needed to be eaten.

We tried to watch a movie but I think I only made it to half time.

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Mike
07/11/2009, Deltaville, VA

July 9th... Deltaville

I wandered around the boatyard this morning looking at bootsrtipes and bottom paint combinations. Since we are going to repaint the blue stripe on the topsides, we are thinking about adding a bootstripe as well.

A little after 8 we headed over to the marina office to pay our usage fee which, if paid monthy, works out to a little over $2 a day per person. Then, since we were legal, we checked out the courtesy car and drove into town. We needed food as well as some 303 fabric guard for a second coat on the dodger and bimini. We stopped at the hardware as well to check out their boat paint supply.

We returned around 10 and I sprayed the 303 and then started the huge task of removing the finish on our teak. Working from the ladder and using a heat gun, I scraped the toe rail and both rub rails that were within my reach. Then I went over the same areas with the sander to clean things up. When I finished one area, I'd move the ladder down two feet and start again.

Kathy made BLT's for lunch and then took the first two (of about four) loads of laundry over to the marina while I continued scraping and sanding. By about 3:30, after being in the sun all day, my legs started getting a little wobbly so I quit, having finished about half of one side.

Kathy had exchanged books at the marina so we read for a couple of hours before grilling hamburgers for dinner.

We read for a while but crashed shortly after dark.

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