South African "Catalina" 22

[greg_m]

Looking forward to your holiday video.

I follow a lot of youtube sailing channels... I take my hat off to those who produce videos with good quality exciting content on a weekly basis! The amount of raw footage to go though and edit must be mind boggling.

It's taking me forever to wade through the 6 hours of raw video footage - I need a "holiday" to get it done!

 

[greg_m]

On my boat restoration front not much visual progress being made so a lack of pictures... I continue to scrape the old blue paint off the deck and hatches and coach roof which continues to show up more superficial but highly annoying damage to surface - like holes from previous fittings being filled with silicone, or damage to gelcoat from knocks being filled with what you guys call "bondo". So all the little damage areas will need cleaning out and filling with epoxy based filler before trying to repaint.

In some places like in the cockpit seat water drain channels (coamings?) the gelcoat is so rotten and cracked under the blue paint it simple comes out with a scraper while removing the blue paint. So will have to grind out those channels and apply some new CSM/resin laminate to make the surface good again. Same with all the deck fittings and hardware. Grind out to a shallow bowl and make good with CSM/resin laminates.

Yesteday evening I acid washed the rust off the other side of the keel, washed it down thoroughly and then coated it with a epoxy barrier/primer coat. The first side has been done in a similar way however I have applied fairing compound which is not finished off yet. So making progress on a lot of little things but nothing really "picture worthy" for display.

 

[greg_m]

Hi all.. I'm still alive although been very "offline" in terms of my vacation. Wishing all a great year ahead.

Boat work done was NOT nearly as much as was planned... lots of reasons but chiefly - I was enjoying my holidays with family and friends to much for silly boat work!

Work was mostly just sanding and filling of holes and more sanding...

 

[greg_m]

Boat work update: Had to go back and check what I have already uploaded - yep it's been a while!

In this post I remove the old cockpit drain brass inserts. Well I ended up having to cut them out as the were bonded in place. After that I then used an angle grinder, belts sander and manual sanding to remove old rotted gel coat and fiberglass. I ended up sanding a large "dish" recess in order to fill it back with new laminate. This was very dusty so ended up washing out the cockpit to clean it prior to the glass work.

I sealed the holes from below with some plastic packaging tape as a support for the filler. Using a batch of thickened resin I filled the holes and built up a layer to fill in the "dish" about half way. The filler was a combination of resin/silica powder/fiberglass fibers made into a stiff peanut butter consistency.

Then I covered the lot with three layers of CSM of increasing diameter pieces. I'm preety certain now that water will not make its way into the boat from the cockpit sole! I have also eliminated the two drain holes in the boats bottom. Yep my boat had four holes through the bottom = Galley sink drain, keel lifting cable and two separate cockpit drains!

 

[SVMOONDANCE]

If I were you, I'd leave those sealed shut and put the new ones in the stern like the newr models.

 

[greg_m]

If I were you, I'd leave those sealed shut and put the new ones in the stern like the newr models.

Already been done... check my post #308! However to get the water to run to the stern I also had to modify the level of the cockpit sole...

 

[greg_m]

Foredeck hatch lid update: So I had previously done some work on this and had laminated a 6mm marine plywood piece to the inside to strengthen the hatch lid. See post #286 from Oct 31, 2018.

So at that stage it needed sanding, filling in the fillet around the edge of the wood and then some CSM applied to strengthen the laminate and just seal everything. I also then applied a coating to white gel coat to finish off the inside. I'm happy with results, feels a lot more sturdy to stand on but it has made the lid a noticeably heavier. This was done early December 2018.

 

[greg_m]

Scraping off paint the hard way... I can only refer you to the original posts where you see the blue paint all over the deck, coach roof, cockpit sides and coamings to get an idea of the amount of work, effort and time that it has consumed to remove all the old crap blue paint. Problem is it also brought out the crap in the gel coat layer as well

This has been about three months of on and off work to get to this point. I'm still busy in these photos with the cockpit and main sliding hatch. Ohh.. also working on maintaining my Mauritius tan!

The routine has been scraping off old, sanding back as much as possible and then moving on to the next piece... you don't realise the level of detail in the deck till you have to sand every square inch of it after scraping off the old gunk!

Updated the pictures related to this post, 14/02/2019.

 

[greg_m]

Coach roof holes repairs:

Mast step: So after scraping off the paint and sanding back the bad gelcoat it exposed some rotten fiber glass laminate under the mast step foot area. So I ground out a fairly deep recess dish shape, enlarged the holes from bolts to get rid of rotten glass. Filled all the holes back with some thickened resing peanut but mixture and glassed over the area with several layers of CSM.

The coach roof vents: This boat had vents fitted in the coach roof and I wanted to maintain this for ventilation. Previously I had done some work from the inside to make good the holes and the "tube" piece that prevents the water from going down into the saloon area. This needed to be sanded, faired, sanded again, built up with some CSM laminate and then sanded again!

 

[Gene Neill]

Love the way that hatch came out!

 

[JRT]

Amazing work and dedication!

 

[greg_m]

So removing the "shine" has exposed the "sh1t"! This is just a taste of the myriad of gel coat cracks and holes that I have been slowly addressing. The holes have been as a result of air bubbles between the gel coat applied to the mould and the subsequent laminate applied on top. Corners and edges suffer the most from this fabrication issue.

The process has been to grind out a small area with my cutting tool in the drill and then cut back till the underlying surface shows good materials. Repair work is slow and tedious. I'm no body panel expert so the repairs are by no means perfect but they are a helluva lot better than painting over holes!

The gunwales or toe rails along the deck outer edges has proven to be the most bothersome. Both inside and outside edges are affected. The cockpit coaming and transom corners inside the seating area has also been extensively "bondoed"...Will update with actual repairs pics soon.

 

[greg_m]

Foredeck hatch cover update: Filled in holes and repaired edges and corners on the outside of the hatch cover. I decided to put on a layer of CSM/resin to the outside surfaces and around edges.

This partly as an experiment to see how the works out as I have reached the conclusion that I need to recover the WHOLE deck and coach roof and cockpit area with a new layer of glass cloth/resin. Again I need to refer to and blame Andy at Boatworks Today youtube channel! Trying to just apply some kind of painted on coat over the very poor gelcoat layer would be a disaster.

Although the hatch lid feels much more sturdy now as a result of adding the single layer of CSM (450g/m^2) it is also significantly heavier. From getting stood on by heavy adults point of view not to worried by he extra weight versus strength BUT from this little experiment I'm realising that CSM/resin is going to add a lot of weight to the upper surfaces of the boats entire deck. I'm not looking for strength, just want to seal the surface so need to consider a much lighter cloth.

 

[greg_m]

Ongoing deck repairs: Sanding, filling, sanding, fairing, sanding... you get the idea! To date there has been a lot of it to sort out the myriad of little damaged areas. At present it's really going slowly and I see very little in the way of progress. Motivation as a result has seriously slumped

I'm still busy with the coach roof area and cockpit area. Fore deck, side decks, both gunwales and outside cockpit coamings are done. Still have to tackle the cockpit side walls, seating area and inside coamings.

 

[greg_m]

So a little work got done yesterday! We had a very nice break in what has been a lengthy period of strong South Easterly winds gusting upwards of 35 knots at times... literally blowing for a couple of weeks! Impossible to do any fibreglass work on the boat as it just jets blasted with salty sea air and beach sand, never mind the garden and building work dust that gets carried on the wind.

I had to grind and sand away the old rotten gel coat from around the window frame mounting areas. The old frames were shot and the PO did a crap job of silicone sealants and screws through plywood "frames" mounted on the outside. Long ago rotted and the sealant was mostly useless as well. This however left the laminate too thin for my proposed new rubber seals which require a 6mm thick mounting flange. So with the wind having all but disappeared I decided to tackle this job. Two layers of CSM have been applied to the outside of the coach roof in way of the window openings. To avoid direct sunlight on the work area I did the strbrd side first early morning and the port side late afternoon as the sun shifted around.

Need to still finish off with a fairing compound to smooth off the CSM layers. I must say I quite like the random finish in the bare CSM ... I find it aesthetically pleasing but many would probably argue the point. Must be perfectly smooth and shiny!

The phots only show the strbrd side but I have done both side to same point.

 

[Doug Doty]

Started at the beginning and read through to here. I am very impressed with your tenacity to see this through to the end and uncompromising dedication to always taking the best and not the easiest approach. I am inspired by your efforts. Bravo !!

 

[Hardhead]

I agree, not only doing the work, but also documenting it in such detail - that's another job in itself. Really a great series of posts.

 

[greg_m]

Started at the beginning and read through to here. I am very impressed with your tenacity to see this through to the end and uncompromising dedication to always taking the best and not the easiest approach. I am inspired by your efforts. Bravo !!

Yoh... that must have taken some time! Thanks the kind words. (Yoh is South African for Wow... pronounced something like yaw but more short and sharp.)

 

[greg_m]

So after laying up the two layers of CSM and being a bit liberal with the actual resin I had lots of sanding to do in order to remove excess resin. After sanding I noted that there were "hills and valleys" and even a few "crevices and crags". ie: despite my best efforts the layup thickness was not even along the length.

Made up some fairing compound and plastered it around the perimeter of the opening on Friday evening. I had to wait for the fairing compound to harden over two days and only started the sanding last night. Busy manually sanding with a flexible long sanding board.

 

[greg_m]

So I eventually got back into boat work and decided to tackle the fairing around the window frame openings. Armed with a longboard sander, my trusty new orbital sander and eventually the belt sander I finished off the sanding job. I then was able to haul out of storage the moulded rubber window frame material that I purchased nearly two years ago! Here I am test fitting and cutting to size. You can see the opposite side through the opening. I was in the process of cutting and shaping the perspex when it started to rain!