January 24, 2010

It’s been a busy week; some of the activity even contributed to progress on Circadian. A lot of time was spent dealing with a DMV snafu with my truck’s registration. Nonetheless, during the week I managed to continue with the restoration of the head locker doors and cut narrow boards of fiberglass from a piece of hull that Scott cut from a boat he scrapped. These strips would be used to correct a construction design flaw in the cockpit lockers. Ever since I had bought Circadian, I had been puzzled by water leaking into the engine room and sitting on top of the new fuel tanks. There were no deck or hardware leaks. I think I’ve finally identified the source: the cockpit lockers that allow water to enter at the bottom edge because there is no backing board to block water. Glassing in a fiberglass backing board to dam the flow and some weatherstripping around the perimenter should cure the leak. After the first post-repair rain or washdown, I’ll know for sure.

The challenge with cutting the fiberglass boards was making relatively straight boards out of a curved and irregularly cut hunk of fiberglass. To make a straight edge from which I could make parallel cuts on the table saw, I first made a cut with the circular saw guided by a straight piece of angle steel. I improvised a vacuum connection to suck up most of the nasty fiberglass dust. Once that base line was established, I made the remaining cuts on the table saw that has its own vacuum system. Of course I wore a mask anyway.

Saturday was a beautiful day that I spent mostly doing errands, but I also managed to pick up some parts and supplies for the work I would be doing on Circadian. I got new hose and the service kit for rebuilding the Gusher 8 bilge pump, self-mixing six10 epoxy for installing the fiberglass strips I had made, and anodized aluminum angle and 3/8 inch plexiglass for rebuilding the teak hatches with a better design.

Saturday evening I sanded and put another coat of varnish on one of the head locker doors and serviced a leaking and ineffective bilge pump. That all went fine, with no problems more serious than a cut thumb.
I expected Sunday to be just as nice as Saturday, and was disappointed when I encountered dense fog on the drive out to the Delta. I could only hope that it burned off soon enough to allow surfaces to dry and epoxy to cure. In the meantime, I marked and cut the fiberglass strips for fixing each of the four cockpit lockers and cleared out the aft head by loading all the left over paint, compounds and solvents into the truck. I would need more clamps to hold the fiberglass boards in place while the epoxy cured, and since it was still foggy, I decided I might as well go into town and buy them as well as pick up some lunch.
By the time I got back, the fog had burned off so I could use the epoxy to glue the boards in place. It took a bit of time to set up the clamps and boards to hold them in place, but it all went fine. It was still a bit cool, so I pre-heated the tube of six/10 epoxy and set up the heater and heat lamp to warm the locker area. I hadn’t tried the new six/10 system yet, so I wanted to see how it worked. It’s thickened two-part epoxy that comes in a conventional caulking tube and self-mixes in the nozzle as it comes out.
It worked very neatly. Unfortunately, it hadn’t cured by the time I had to leave (despite the specified pot life of 42 minutes and supposedly curing at temperatures as low as 50 degrees F), so I had to cover everything in protective plastic. Hopefully it will be fully cured by my next visit. We’ll see….

While I was waiting for the epoxy to cure, I went to work on the doghouse skylight that still had a small leak despite my rebuilding it earlier. I had concluded that when it was bolted down to the curved top of the doghouse, the bending broke the seal between the frame and the plexiglass window. Sanding the joint between the frame and the plexiglass confirmed that there were some new gaps. After cleaning the joint, I masked the frame and plexiglass in preparation for sealing with 3M 4000 UV. I applied the sealant and smoothed the joint with my usual tools: an index finger and thumb covered with a tight latex glove. Makes for a smooth surface and forces the sealant into the joint. After letting the sealant partially cure, I removed the tape leaving a clean line. Since I had opened the tube of sealant, I decided to apply a redundant seal around the new ABI port I had intalled previously. It was kind of “quick and dirty” and not the best job I’ve done, but it will do until the time comes when I sand the cabin in preparation for painting.
After cleaning up the inevitable caulking mess, I removed the two teak hatches for modification and rebuilding back in the shop and fashioned temporary hatch covers with boards and plastic sheeting. Because the epoxy for the leaky locker fix still hadn’t cured, I covered the locker openings with plastic sheeting. I loaded up some tools, cleaned up, buttoned up, did a final check and drove off into the sunset. I had accomplished everything on the day's task list, so it had been a good day.