January 31, 2010

I spent a few evenings during the week cutting new louvers for the bottom of the aft cabin hanging locker (to replace the four that were missing) and filling and fairing the new windlass base.

I had brought home one of the original louvers as a model for the new ones. Each was about 6 inches long and a quarter of an inch thick. Only three-eighths of an inch wide, there wouldn't be much to hold onto putting it through the table saw, and I had to cut two parallel faces at a 45 degree angle. The challenge would be to cut them all precisely and still have all my fingers when I was done. I clamped a couple of feather boards to the saw to guide the small pieces past the blade and pushed them through with plastic and wood pushing sticks. It was still scary, but I was careful and it all worked. I was glad I had an Inca saw with a Forrest blade! After cutting, the louvers required very little sanding and fit perfectly when I checked them later.

I ground down the new windlass base to round the corners and even things out. That was followed by a final layer of glass cloth and epoxy (which bonds better to cured polyester). A little filling with epoxy with enough microballoons added to create a filler the consistency of peanut butter was followed by a lot of hand sanding with a straight board after it cured.

Today was the first day without the threat of rain, so I was able to tackle mounting the radar and threading the antenna cable through the mast. As I anticipated, mounting the support bracket was pretty straightforward; it was fishing the antenna cable through the mast that was tough. Even simply drilling the 3/4 inch holes for it had its hazards. The first time the drill bit jammed in the hole, the powerful 1/2 inch electric drill damn near broke my wrist!

While the task would have been impossible without the wire fish tape I had bought, it was still difficult. I soon discovered that there was no way to extract the end of the tape from the hole by the radar mount, which would have allowed me to pull the antenna cable down to the base of the mast with the connector at the right end. Instead, I had to thread the fish tape from the top down, struggle to get it out the base, attach some 1/8 inch line to it, then pull the tape and line back out the top. I then attached the cable to the line and pulled it back down the mast. Because the base of the mast already had a couple of large drainage holes in the bottom, at least I could peer inside, see what was going on and pull or push things around with a bent coathanger wire. When I finally got the plug end of the cable down to the base, it was these extra holes that made the effort to get the plug back out the hole merely tedious and frustrating instead of completely futile.

On board the boat, I took measurements to determine the lengths of the heavy electrical cable I would need to connect the new windlass to the batteries. At $5/foot (which is half the cursed West Marine price!), you want to get it right!

I taped a piece of plastic sheeting over the port light I suspected of leaking above the v-berth, buttoned-up, cleaned-up, and called it a day.