Took approximately 40 hours, mostly 3 hour shifts after work till dark. Hopefully I can finish the other side quicker with what I learned on this one. Opened up about 40 blisters as well. It is difficult and boring work. Holding the grinder above the head and away from the body is hell on the shoulders and back, but my endurance is getting better. This is probably the worst job of the whole rebuild, glad it is over halfway done.
6 comments:
Are you grinding clear through the gelcoat to raw fiberglass?
I am contemplating doing the same thing on my 31' boat. Am switching from a 5'' random orbital DA sander to a grinder w/ soft pad and 40 grit discs.
What kind of barrier coat are you going to go with?
It's good to see another young guy embarking upon such an intimidating patch- I'm 20 and feel constantly overwhelmed by all of this, but it's quite a(n expensive) ride!
Good luck, great blog!
Yep I am grinding straight through to raw glass. The gel-coat was so shot and chipping away in places, combined with the deep blisters it was evident that the glass was pretty wet. Getting the gel-coat off will allow the glass to dry off better and the barrier coat will replace it.
I have yet to decide on the barrier coat, though I will probably go with either Interlux's Interprotect, or West System's barrier coating.
Open any blisters on your hands?
Wow - what a job.
Thankfully, Eolian's hull had been epoxy barrier coated before we got her - glad I do not have to go thru this.
bob
http://www.boatpeeling.com/BP/Gelcoat_Removal.html
Check this out. The video at the bottom... I think that these gelcoat peelers are around 800 bucks-but they're cool!
Just stumbled across your blog...
we should share notes. I'm in a relatively similar situation in MD.
Currently I'm refitting a 38' Cheoy Lee.
You may have noticed as another youngish person in the DIY boat/voyaging community, the peer group seems to be pretty small...
anyway, here's a link to my picasa site:
http://picasaweb.google.com/trevor.griffiths/Present#
Thanks for commenting Trevor. I'm out of town on business but I will definitely spend some time going through your photos. Looks like you've done a good amount of work. Indeed the peer group is small, good to find that others are motivated to do something similar.
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