All hands on deck
Finally, a nice warm, sunny Saturday! We checked the forecast and got up early to start attacking the deck before quiet hours came into force at 1pm on Saturdays (no noise allowed at all on Sundays!).
Our initial treatment of the deck involves three steps:
- Using an angle grinder to take any rust spots back to the bare metal
- Using a wire brush attachment on a drill to exfoliate off any loose paint chips, and
- Painting over the bare metal spots with red oxide to prevent rust until the big paint job
I’m happy to say that, since he was a guest, Alex took the most fun angle grinding job, I got the wire brushing, and James was left to sweep away the considerable green dust and paint after us.
It was all going well until we smelt electrons… and realised we’d completely killed the angle grinder! So the boys went off to Machine Mart to buy a new one for next time, and I used the last hour of “noisy hours” to sand down the window frames on the Captain’s Cabin and stain/varnish them back into some semblance of health.
But neither the day nor the sunshine was over by the time they got back, so James went about dismantling the copper pipes from the old LPG installation (Calor Force are very happy to work on boats, fyi! They even have guys trained up on BSS regulations, which floored me…) in order to sell them for scrap. Our last lot of copper pipes from the old hot water system earned us a cool £50 so we hold onto every scrap now. You can also see James’s red oxide deck patching in the foreground, so the areas that were just wire brushed aren’t nearly as obvious.
James and Alex also thought ahead and bought supplies for next weekend’s project, realising that the only environment more hostile than our fenders is B&Q on a bank holiday Saturday… When Nikolaj was piping in our hot water supply, he had to remove a portion of the starboard toilet’s shower wall, so we’ve got the supplies to rebuild the wall and tile it over again.
A shower at low tide? What a luxury…
Ria, 29 April 2008, 19:19:
Thanks for the comment- the Hendrik looks like a fantastic project! You said there were 7 SA boat bloggers- who are the rest?
James, 29 April 2008, 20:26:
They’re not all from SA (although there are other boatdwellers on the site) but there’s a list of them at the bottom of the right-hand column over there —>
Seb, 1 May 2008, 12:16:
Hi there.
There is so much I can say regarding what you are doing as I’m sure you know that wendy ann has seriously tested my determination at removing old paint and extremely recalcitrant rust. However I’m in a shipyard where there are no regulations against noise, but here goes anyway. Forget about wirebrushes on drills, you are merely tickling your vessel, Twist knot Wirebrush attachments on anglegrinders are the best place to start, the bevel shapes rather than cups are the ones I’ve found most useful, but beware. You should be wearing the appropriate safety gear, which includes heavy gloves. I have a few choice scars to show for picking up grinders without wearing them, and the wires occasionally ping off and embed themselves deeply (up to 8mm) in any exposed skin, which could easily include eyes. Buy decent grinders, I’ve lost count of the number of cheap, own brand ones I’ve killed. Makita and bosch make good ones and mine have withstood three years of real abuse, although the bearings have seen better days on my makita. You will need to use impact to break heavy rust and scale though, as grinders merely shine it up, and it can look a lot like dull metal .Tim and I have both used needleguns and airhammers with a great success rate. However both techniques are EXTREMELY noisy and fairly slow, but they will get through even the heaviest stuff. The problem with flap wheels and grinding discs is that they also remove a certain amount of steel (which is softer than heavy scale) and this is not a good idea. If you want to do it really properly then I recommend blasting. UHP (water) slurry, or grit all work and are quick but expensive and noisy, and you’ll need to erect temporary shrouding for all of the above to avoid being sued by your neighbours when the shit lands on their boats.
After all that, your choice of protective paint and how it is to be applied is most important to protect all your hard work on your beautiful vessel. The two pack epoxy primers really are it. Hempel, Jotun, and international (amongst others) all make good ones, some of which (jotamastic, interzone 954, intershield 300) are said to be ginger rust tolerant. For patches its ok brushed or rollered on (be aware it will take many more coats to achieve the required dry film thickness) but for large areas, AIRLESS spray hammers the paint into your surface producing a proper, lasting finish over which to apply your decorative top coats. Single pack Red or zinc primers are used as holding primers on work in progress, and have neither the thickness nor durability to withstand marine or riverbased environments.
Feel free to e-mail if you fancy more advice, sorry if this all sounds a bit serious, but it’s worth doing these things right, I made a few mistakes along the way, but have learned a lot from them, it’d be nice to pass it on.
Good Luck, you have a stunning vessel, and I’m sure your efforts, whatever you choose to do, will only increase her beauty.
Seb. Wendy Ann 2.