May 23, 2011

Now that I had a nice, newly-painted helm chair and pump, the uncovered hub of the steering wheel stood out as an eyesore. So, during the week I fabricated a teak cap for it.








The other items I took care of during the week and on Saturday, between house tasks, were to cut out replacement plywood for the previously removed rotten sections in the pilothouse wall and to cut thick plywood backing panels for the ceiling of the pilothouse where I would be mounting instruments. I also picked up some 1/4-inch mahogany plywood and black marine vinyl to cover it that I will use to make the ceiling panel for the instrument area. Because the vinyl fabric had "marine" in the name, it was $15 per yard, costing me nearly $50 for the three yards I needed. In addition, I worked on salvaging the teak panel below the steering wheel that was both weathered and soaked with hydraulic oil that had leaked from the helm pump. I sanded off as much of the oil-soaked teak veneer as I dared, then scrubbed it with acetone and paint thinner to try to remove any remaining oil from the surface before applying varnish. I thinned the first coat of varnish about 50%, with the idea that any remnants of oil would dissolve in the thinner and become part of the finish rather than prevent the varnish from adhering properly. When the first coat of unthinned varnish dried, it seemed to have a slight oil film on top in places. Perhaps hydraulic oil doesn't dissolve in varnish/thinner, and it rose to the top. That film is easily removed before I recoat, and as long as the varnish adheres properly, it won't matter. Time will tell.

I headed out to Circadian on Sunday morning under a gray, dull sky blanketed with high cirrus clouds. That made for uninteresting landscapes, but created a ring around the sun later.



On board Circadian, I hauled out the grinder and worked on fitting the new plywood pieces to replace the previously cut out rotten sections in the pilothouse. The fit was good, but I had to grind away a section in order to be able to slip the new pieces in place without removing the window. I'll just make a small filler piece to fill the gap. It will all be seamless once I epoxy everything in place and paint it.



Most of the day was spent gluing backing panels in place on the doghouse ceiling so I will have something solid on which to mount instruments later. I used Bondo initially for its very short set time (about 5 minutes), and then used thickened epoxy fillets around the edges for additional strength. Once the panels were in place, I made a rough paper pattern showing where all the reinforced areas were to guide instrument placement later.

With the major tasks taken care of, I turned to smaller items such as installing the newly-painted helm seat, and trying one more time to tackle the shower sump drain leaks. Not only did my latest brilliant idea to seal the drain fail to work, but this time I broke loose the strainer fitting on the shower floor. So, it's not just back to square one, it's back to square minus one on that problem. Sometimes what seems like the simplest problem is the toughest!

On the good news side, the helm pump was absolutely free of any leaks and functioned as it should. So, I felt I could finally remove the emergency tiller shaft that stuck up through the aft deck and created an unsightly, inconvenient, and even dangerous obstacle as well as a deck opening for water to get below. My only concern was that in the whole time I've had Circadian, I'd never found the chromed bronze deck plate for closing off the access hole for the tiller shaft. Bronze or stainless replacements are ridiculously expensive. Well, purely by chance I found it while measuring some drawer cutouts in the aft cabin. Yippee!!! Made my whole week!