November 8, 2010

It was a cha-cha week on Circadian: one step forward, two back. During the week I took several more measures to eliminate dust and grit in my final varnish coats. I moved my HEPA filter into the guest bathroom I used as a clean room and let it run for 24 hours. I filtered the varnish into a new plastic cup that had been blown out with canned air. After vacuuming the surface to be varnished, I wiped it down with a tack rag and followed that by blowing it off with canned air. It all helped, but there were still flaws. It only takes one hair, flake of dandruff, bit of dust or moth to mar an otherwise perfect surface. Duh!

Sooooooo, Saturday I bit the bullet and decided I had to do what I had been working so hard to avoid: a hand-rubbed finish. I was able to get powdered pumice and rottenstone at Woodcraft, where they not only have it, they don't look at you like you're crazy when you ask for it. I already had some 2000 grit wet sandpaper (usually used for color sanding auto finishes), finishing wax, and a new secret ingredient: Pledge.

I wet sanded the table top, followed that with pumice mixed with a bit of water to make a paste, which was followed (after removing the pumice completely) by the rottenstone, also mixed into a paste. Lots of rubbing, always with the grain, of course. Then I applied the carnauba finishing wax to add more luster. It did, but it also tended to streak and show marks wherever it was touched. As an experiment, I tried going over it with some Pledge. Eureka!! Whatever oil or other secret ingredients are in that stuff, it did the trick. No fingerprints, and a nice smooth luster that shows reflections, but doesn't make the wood look like it's covered with plastic (which it is). So from now on, frustration will be replaced with elbow grease.

Sunday it rained steadily, but I wanted to go to the boat to check for leaks, replace the steering wheel and finish wiring up the radar.

The one teak hatch that wasn't covered with plastic sheeting seemed fine. I did discover that one of the covered-over holes for the old ports was leaking, so I now know which new port gets installed next. Much to my surprise and disappointment, I discovered the forward hatch that I had redone was leaking somewhere between the frame and the base. I tried tightening the mounting screws in the rain, to no avail. There was one screw the wrong size that could not be tightened securely, so that might be it. There's a lot of butyl around the base, but I didn't pre-compress it with clamps like I did with the new ports (which, by the way, did not leak). When I get some dry weather, I'll remove all the mounting screws, stuff in more butyl, and use clamps to compress the butyl.

I had to replace the steering wheel that I had just removed (with some difficulty, you might recall) because the mechanic who is going to remove my old generator wants to do it next week. To pull it off the boat, we need to move the boat to another part of the marina. Steering will be a necessity! The steering wheel's mounting screw would not go back into the shaft because it took so much force on the wheel puller to get the wheel off that the pressure from central pin on the puller distorted the first few threads in the steering wheel shaft just enough to prevent the mounting bolt from screwing in. No worries, I thought; I'll just re-tap the threads. No big deal, since I had a tap and die set on board. English boat, English threads, right? It turns out, no. So, I had to drive into town and get a metric tap the right size. Fortunately, they had one, and it did the job.

Next: wire up the radar display. Months ago while hauled out in Napa, I mounted the antenna on the mast while the mast was down, and eventually got the antenna wire through the mast. (See January 31 and February 15 blogs.) But under the gun to get the boat in the water and to her home berth, I never had time to wire up the display and check to see if everything worked. So, for all these months, it's been a little concern nagging at me. The day of reckoning had finally arrived. Luckily there was a breaker available on the panel and a route for the wire into the doghouse that didn't require any drilling. However, the instructions also called for a ground wire to be run from a terminal on the display "to a bolt on the hull (or weld)." Clearly they were assuming a metal hull, since fiberglass is an insulator. I found a bolt on the engine that had several other ground wires terminated to it, so I thought that would be a good spot to ground the display. I had just enough black wire to reach, too. Once I had everything wired up, it was time for the dramatic moment: would it work? I pressed the power switch. The display immediately lit up and showed the proper first screen. Yeah! Okay, but the big test was would the antenna and the cable connection work? I hacked around with the buttons and on-screen menu until I had arrived at the display that should show the radar image. Blank white screen. I went through the sequence again just to be sure I had done it right. I had. Still a blank screen. The roar of stomach acid flowing was palpable. I had visions of big problems and big expenses. I was able to push back the tide of anxiety and negative fantasies long enough to recall the wisdom of Occam's razor, which in this case meant "Look for the simplest problem/solution first." I jiggled the antenna connection on the back of the display. Voila!!! A radar image! Whew!!!

While I won't be able to permanently mount the display until I get a new ceiling in the doghouse, it was a great relief to know the radar is working.

Since I will need to move the boat next week, I thought it would be a good idea to make sure the engine and running gear were working properly before I left. Besides, the engine hadn't been run in quite a while, and it needed some exercise. I could let it run while I cleaned up. I checked the oil, which was still clear since the last change (only about 10 operating hours ago), and opened the raw water intake seacock. The engine started right up, water was gushing out the exhaust as it should, and she ran smoothly. There was only one fly in the ointment: the electronic digital engine hour meter was blank! Damn! Always something. I checked the connections on the back of the panel and everything seemed solid. Short of some sort of internal computer failure, the only thing I could think of that might have caused the failure was that there might be a ground connection at the engine bolt I used to ground the radar that had gone bad as a result of the removal and reassembly. Well, I was out of time and couldn't try to test that possibility. If a simple fix like cleaning and reconnecting the grounds doesn't do it, I'll have to just buy a good old reliable Hobbs meter and wire it into the ignition circuit. Stay tuned!