Shifting sands
 

Well, sanders...

The last couple of days I've been sanding stainless steel, taking either
rusty, dinged, material which is still on the boat, or new, to replace it,
mill finish, tube and plate, for the bow roller cage and assembly, to
brilliant.

Whew! I thought sanding epoxy was hard work! Yet, even stainless yields to
my unrelenting pressure and attention. The existing material (still on the
bow of the boat) has a couple of grits to go before I take the rouge wheel
to it. The stainless material which will be welded in place of the rotted
stuff which came off is almost to the point of rouge in a couple of items,
but the tubing for the cage is all done.

About 12 total feet of 2" pipe has been reduced from a rough gray, with some
manufacturing marks and dings removed, to a flawless 400-grit, ready for
polish. The 3.5" pipe which will replace the rotted structure on the roller
system is to a 220 grit; two more to go. The plates on the end of this
pipe, when installed, are ready for polish.

When I wasn't doing that, we were refinishing the drinks holder in the
cockpit, which sits above the new custom, aysmmetrically leaved (the
binnacle is off the centerline of the cockpit due to the shape of the
cockpit with the inside walkthrough headroom moving the port side seating
closer to the center), cockpit table. The table would impact the binnacle
to which it hinges when it's raised, so I did some very careful work with a
rotary rasp, and relieved the main table and the two leaves enough to allow
it to sit level. Lydia's totally refinished the table before that, to great
and wondrous effect.

The leaves' support system the builder made for this custom table was simply
inadequate, so we cut it off after I designed something which would actually
work. I have to source the teak to make it up, and will get the new pulpit
teak (goes in the middle of the two anchors; welding the new material up
will allow a bigger gangplank, so to speak) at the same time. In between
those table ventures, I redid the lay-flat hinge receivers - he'd not
removed enough material, allowing the hinges to be "proud" vs flush. After
Lydia had already put a dozen loving coats of varnish on it, removing the
varnish was much harder than taking off the wood!

That's, in part, because I'm now convinced that, our builder just didn't
want to mess with teak. Instead, he claimed that one could not get teak
that wouldn't double or triple the price, and the source I had didn't
actually HAVE teak. (Curiously, it was the place he got the replacement
door frame for our forward head. I wonder if THAT wasn't teak, either
[J/K, it was a case of proof of my presumption that he was just trying not
to have to use teak, not that the place didn't, in fact, HAVE teak].)
Instead, he used Spanish Cedar which, properly stained and varnished, has a
look of teak. Unfortunately, it's not much harder than balsa. The relief
of the binnacle impact area took next to no effort, other than all the
cut-and-try so I didn't take off more than needed. It's so soft, we'll have
to go to barrel bolts to assure that the screws holding the various fittings
don't pull out :{/)

After just a bit of working with it, along with misaligned hinges which make
the leaves not close "just so" (which also complicated the removal of the
material allowing the binnacle not to impact the table - something I knew
would have to be done when I designed it), I thought to myself, "I think
we're going to wind up having this duplicated in teak somewhere down the
road."

Lydia, after removing the original leaf support system and trying to repair
the damage done by the glue used, before she revarnished that area, said to
me over lunch, "I think we'll probably wind up replacing this wood with
teak, somewhere where materials and labor are cheap." If she's willing to
toss several hundred bux, it's GOTTA be bad!

Tomorrow, the Raymarine guy who actually keeps his promise (two prior have
not, one multiple times, the other merely refusing to even answer the phone
when I call to ask when he'll be here - he left to get a cable to test our
new triducer, after a few minutes aboard to assess the work, and never came
back) to show up will be here to install the new triducer for the
fishfinder. Today I pulled the old one's wires through to the bow, with
accompanying strings for leads for the new single cable, removed the
Y-valve, and generally made ready for installation. Once that's finished,
we'll finish up on the fairing of the hull, interrupted by the need to get
the stainless polished for THAT repair/installation, and, out of sheer
exhaustion/inertia, my taking a day off from that to do the table hinge
mounting and binnacle obstruction relief.

We're enjoying the work, and pleased as punch that we've attracted a lot of
attention from folks who ohh-and-ahh over what we've done so far, many of
them very knowledgeable and experienced with what we're going through. For
ourselves, we're glad we're taking the time to do everything just right, as
well as fixing lots of stuff we've uncovered along the way. But I'll be
very glad when we fill with fuel and water and head back to the Bahamas. If
the season doesn't get any more energetic, and we don't get more done than
we have, in the time we've been at it, we may not have to worry about
hurricane season, and just head south straight from here!

The most recent "Peril of Pauline" is our refrigeration/freezer seeming to
be taking a dump. Long story which I'll not encumber you with, especially
as it's not over yet, but various fixes I've done in the past when this
symptom (no cool, compressor's running, or Smart Speed Control doesn't seem
to be acting right) showed up occasionally have had no effect. Thus, going
from perfect function (8° and 32° in freezer and reefer boxes, even in 90+
heat) to having NO heat removal since sometime last night, this has a
heightened sense of urgency. Even if I get it to work again, we're going to
have to do something "final" about it before we cast off, as, if it's not
resolved, it will only get worse in the wilds of wherever we are. As the
techs I've spoken with can't tell from the symptoms what it is, we're about
to get expensive, likely, as we track down what's really happening so we can
address it. Cool! (well, it would be nice for it to be cooling, but not
yet...)

One day not too long from now, we may also get to test the shifting sands
outside the small channel entrance to where we've been holed up in the
dirtiest yard in the East, yet the favorite of so many cruisers we've met in
our various travels, I lose count. Several dozen of them said hi
immediately after we arrived, or as they've been coming in while we're here.
So, Riverside Marina obviously has a lot going for it. One day I'll have a
log posting reviewing our time here, but it suffices to say that it's a bit
of a Peyton Place in terms of intrigue, gossip, misinformation, fueding and
nearly everything else other than wife-swapping (though I can't be
absolutely sure that doesn't happen, either!), but also the home of the most
caring and giving folks you'll likely encounter.

L8R, y'all

Skip
--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

Shifting sands
 

On Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:00:10 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

Well, sanders...

The last couple of days I've been sanding stainless steel, taking either
rusty, dinged, material which is still on the boat, or new, to replace it,
mill finish, tube and plate, for the bow roller cage and assembly, to
brilliant.

Whew! I thought sanding epoxy was hard work! Yet, even stainless yields to
my unrelenting pressure and attention. The existing material (still on the
bow of the boat) has a couple of grits to go before I take the rouge wheel
to it. The stainless material which will be welded in place of the rotted
stuff which came off is almost to the point of rouge in a couple of items,
but the tubing for the cage is all done.

About 12 total feet of 2" pipe has been reduced from a rough gray, with some
manufacturing marks and dings removed, to a flawless 400-grit, ready for
polish. The 3.5" pipe which will replace the rotted structure on the roller
system is to a 220 grit; two more to go. The plates on the end of this
pipe, when installed, are ready for polish.


I'm amazed at what you are saying. "Most Stainless Guys" use a 4 inch
angle grinder with a selection of "flap" wheels in various grits and
then a series of felt buffing wheels with at least two abrasives
(rouge being the coarest). The real serious people use dedicated hand
held polishers. 12 ft of rail is hardly a day's work :-)

When I wasn't doing that, we were refinishing the drinks holder in the
cockpit, which sits above the new custom, aysmmetrically leaved (the
binnacle is off the centerline of the cockpit due to the shape of the
cockpit with the inside walkthrough headroom moving the port side seating
closer to the center), cockpit table. The table would impact the binnacle
to which it hinges when it's raised, so I did some very careful work with a
rotary rasp, and relieved the main table and the two leaves enough to allow
it to sit level. Lydia's totally refinished the table before that, to great
and wondrous effect.

The leaves' support system the builder made for this custom table was simply
inadequate, so we cut it off after I designed something which would actually
work. I have to source the teak to make it up, and will get the new pulpit
teak (goes in the middle of the two anchors; welding the new material up
will allow a bigger gangplank, so to speak) at the same time. In between
those table ventures, I redid the lay-flat hinge receivers - he'd not
removed enough material, allowing the hinges to be "proud" vs flush. After
Lydia had already put a dozen loving coats of varnish on it, removing the
varnish was much harder than taking off the wood!

That's, in part, because I'm now convinced that, our builder just didn't
want to mess with teak. Instead, he claimed that one could not get teak
that wouldn't double or triple the price, and the source I had didn't
actually HAVE teak. (Curiously, it was the place he got the replacement
door frame for our forward head. I wonder if THAT wasn't teak, either
[J/K, it was a case of proof of my presumption that he was just trying not
to have to use teak, not that the place didn't, in fact, HAVE teak].)
Instead, he used Spanish Cedar which, properly stained and varnished, has a
look of teak. Unfortunately, it's not much harder than balsa. The relief
of the binnacle impact area took next to no effort, other than all the
cut-and-try so I didn't take off more than needed. It's so soft, we'll have
to go to barrel bolts to assure that the screws holding the various fittings
don't pull out :{/)

After just a bit of working with it, along with misaligned hinges which make
the leaves not close "just so" (which also complicated the removal of the
material allowing the binnacle not to impact the table - something I knew
would have to be done when I designed it), I thought to myself, "I think
we're going to wind up having this duplicated in teak somewhere down the
road."

Lydia, after removing the original leaf support system and trying to repair
the damage done by the glue used, before she revarnished that area, said to
me over lunch, "I think we'll probably wind up replacing this wood with
teak, somewhere where materials and labor are cheap." If she's willing to
toss several hundred bux, it's GOTTA be bad!

I assume that if you are working with teak that you know that
breathing the sanding dust is not good for you. At least the people
here all believe it.

Teak, by the way, in a country, where it once was plentiful, is now
extremely expensive. I can't even begin to guess what it would cost in
a foreign country :-)


Tomorrow, the Raymarine guy who actually keeps his promise (two prior have
not, one multiple times, the other merely refusing to even answer the phone
when I call to ask when he'll be here - he left to get a cable to test our
new triducer, after a few minutes aboard to assess the work, and never came
back) to show up will be here to install the new triducer for the
fishfinder. Today I pulled the old one's wires through to the bow, with
accompanying strings for leads for the new single cable, removed the
Y-valve, and generally made ready for installation. Once that's finished,
we'll finish up on the fairing of the hull, interrupted by the need to get
the stainless polished for THAT repair/installation, and, out of sheer
exhaustion/inertia, my taking a day off from that to do the table hinge
mounting and binnacle obstruction relief.

We're enjoying the work, and pleased as punch that we've attracted a lot of
attention from folks who ohh-and-ahh over what we've done so far, many of
them very knowledgeable and experienced with what we're going through. For
ourselves, we're glad we're taking the time to do everything just right, as
well as fixing lots of stuff we've uncovered along the way. But I'll be
very glad when we fill with fuel and water and head back to the Bahamas. If
the season doesn't get any more energetic, and we don't get more done than
we have, in the time we've been at it, we may not have to worry about
hurricane season, and just head south straight from here!

The most recent "Peril of Pauline" is our refrigeration/freezer seeming to
be taking a dump. Long story which I'll not encumber you with, especially
as it's not over yet, but various fixes I've done in the past when this
symptom (no cool, compressor's running, or Smart Speed Control doesn't seem
to be acting right) showed up occasionally have had no effect. Thus, going
from perfect function (8° and 32° in freezer and reefer boxes, even in 90+
heat) to having NO heat removal since sometime last night, this has a
heightened sense of urgency. Even if I get it to work again, we're going to
have to do something "final" about it before we cast off, as, if it's not
resolved, it will only get worse in the wilds of wherever we are. As the
techs I've spoken with can't tell from the symptoms what it is, we're about
to get expensive, likely, as we track down what's really happening so we can
address it. Cool! (well, it would be nice for it to be cooling, but not
yet...)

One day not too long from now, we may also get to test the shifting sands
outside the small channel entrance to where we've been holed up in the
dirtiest yard in the East, yet the favorite of so many cruisers we've met in
our various travels, I lose count. Several dozen of them said hi
immediately after we arrived, or as they've been coming in while we're here.
So, Riverside Marina obviously has a lot going for it. One day I'll have a
log posting reviewing our time here, but it suffices to say that it's a bit
of a Peyton Place in terms of intrigue, gossip, misinformation, fueding and
nearly everything else other than wife-swapping (though I can't be
absolutely sure that doesn't happen, either!), but also the home of the most
caring and giving folks you'll likely encounter.

L8R, y'all

Skip
--
Cheers,

Bruce

Shifting sands
 

Hi, Bruce,



About 12 total feet of 2" pipe has been reduced from a rough gray, with
some
manufacturing marks and dings removed, to a flawless 400-grit, ready for
polish. The 3.5" pipe which will replace the rotted structure on the
roller
system is to a 220 grit; two more to go. The plates on the end of this
pipe, when installed, are ready for polish.


I'm amazed at what you are saying. "Most Stainless Guys" use a 4 inch
angle grinder with a selection of "flap" wheels in various grits and
then a series of felt buffing wheels with at least two abrasives
(rouge being the coarest). The real serious people use dedicated hand
held polishers. 12 ft of rail is hardly a day's work :-)

I have done some flap-wheel prep on mill-finish work, and that particular
set of SS (became the brackets to our stern platform) STILL has the
scratches.

Otherwise, the sequence of what I was doing is as you describe -
80/120/220/320/400 grit with an air 6" DA, then (the guy who's doing the
welding was kind enough to let me do the polishing to that point) the shop's
10" wheel and rouge/finer takes over from there.

Despite what you say, avoiding flats and dishes on a round item,
particularly one without a large radius, is hard enough with a wide wheel,
let alone a small one. The stuff I'd done with flap wheel was flat, MUCH
easier to get it all - but it still left scratches after some very
aggressive polishing after the flapwheels.

Regardless, that is how this amazing craftsman (I've seen his work - once
bitten, twice shy, from prior SS work, particularly my arch - so have
confidence in the outcome) does it. I could (and likely would) do worse
than to do something else. Keeping the pipe and sander moving (no flats) is
the biggest challenge; the rest is grunt work.


I assume that if you are working with teak that you know that
breathing the sanding dust is not good for you. At least the people
here all believe it.

Yah, I know. Darth Vader mask and goggles.


Teak, by the way, in a country, where it once was plentiful, is now
extremely expensive. I can't even begin to guess what it would cost in
a foreign country :-)

My bitch about all this is that the material was a relatively small part of
the costs. I asked how much more in materials it would be for teak and the
difference was under 10%. The dance began when I sourced some locally at a
surplus joint (where he got the trim for the forward head), which sells it
by the pound. One of his "selling" points was that teak would be very
heavy, vs. the stuff he used which, admittedly, is lightweight - but, so's
Balsa (I used to be a modeler)! He claimed what they had wasn't teak - yet,
he used what they had to do the trim - and that he couldn't get any from any
other supplier.

Regardless, we're faced with the near certainty of having to do it over. As
I'd never worked with it, I had no idea how soft this stuff was, so allowed
myself to be bullied into accepting it. As it was, in the end, the
workmanship was so abominable (which, just in finish alone, was why Lydia
has spent so much time on the table), notably the "cabinetry" (making all
line up, and keeping flush stuff flush) that I'm half-glad that it wasn't
teak, or it would have been ruined.

He may do great furniture and cabinetry, but he sure doesn't do marine stuff
worth a flip, including using standard steel screws (or, at least, they
stick to my marginally magnetized screwdriver - WTF was he thinking?!?). The
only actual stainless stuff on this table is hardware I provided (rebated
from the price he quoted, as agreed).

Tomorrow, the Raymarine guy who actually keeps his promise (two prior have
not, one multiple times, the other merely refusing to even answer the
phone
when I call to ask when he'll be here - he left to get a cable to test our
new triducer, after a few minutes aboard to assess the work, and never
came
back) to show up will be here to install the new triducer for the
fishfinder. Today I pulled the old one's wires through to the bow, with
accompanying strings for leads for the new single cable, removed the
Y-valve, and generally made ready for installation.

Further to the reliability/responsibility of this vendor, this AM, a couple
of hours before our agreed start time , I got an email from him saying he'd
be a bit late, as he had a sea trial he had to do before he got here - but
that he WAS going to be here, just a bit later than originally agreed. The
prior two would have, in the first case, said nothing whatever, and, in the
three prior appointments, never showed up at all, and in the second, just
disappeared and then screened my calls as confirmed by another yard buddy
getting picked up on the same number immediately after one of my calls.
"I'm sorry, we're totally buried - I can't do your work. You'll have to
find someone else." would have been an appropriate dodge if, for some
reason, he just didn't want the job. WTF is wrong with contractors? Are
they so buried with work that they don't have to think about the reputation
they generate by such behavior?

/rant :{))

L8R

Skip

Shifting sands
 

"Flying Pig" wrote in message
...
Well, sanders...

The last couple of days I've been sanding stainless steel, taking either
rusty, dinged, material which is still on the boat, or new, to replace it,
mill finish, tube and plate, for the bow roller cage and assembly, to
brilliant.

Good grief. What you're saying is you let your stainless steel go neglected
for so long that you have to sand off the rust? Holy Cow! All it takes is a
going over about once a month with some Never Dull and it stays looking like
new. Mine is 40 years old and still looks and shines like new. Have you ever
heard the old saying, "A stitch in time saves nine?" Wake up, Skippy.

snippage

That's, in part, because I'm now convinced that, our builder just didn't
want to mess with teak. Instead, he claimed that one could not get teak
that wouldn't double or triple the price, and the source I had didn't
actually HAVE teak. (Curiously, it was the place he got the replacement
door frame for our forward head. I wonder if THAT wasn't teak, either
[J/K, it was a case of proof of my presumption that he was just trying not
to have to use teak, not that the place didn't, in fact, HAVE teak].)
Instead, he used Spanish Cedar which, properly stained and varnished, has
a look of teak. Unfortunately, it's not much harder than balsa. The
relief of the binnacle impact area took next to no effort, other than all
the cut-and-try so I didn't take off more than needed. It's so soft,
we'll have to go to barrel bolts to assure that the screws holding the
various fittings don't pull out :{/)

Forget the wood. Nowadays there is a plastic called "Star Board" It comes in
brown that looks like teak and it will last a lifetime and it never needs
varnish. Get rid of the wood and replace it with Star Board and kiss your
wood-slave days goodbye!

snippage

The most recent "Peril of Pauline" is our refrigeration/freezer seeming to
be taking a dump. Long story which I'll not encumber you with, especially
as it's not over yet, but various fixes I've done in the past when this
symptom (no cool, compressor's running, or Smart Speed Control doesn't
seem to be acting right) showed up occasionally have had no effect. Thus,
going from perfect function (8° and 32° in freezer and reefer boxes, even
in 90+ heat) to having NO heat removal since sometime last night, this has
a heightened sense of urgency. Even if I get it to work again, we're going
to have to do something "final" about it before we cast off, as, if it's
not resolved, it will only get worse in the wilds of wherever we are. As
the techs I've spoken with can't tell from the symptoms what it is, we're
about to get expensive, likely, as we track down what's really happening
so we can address it. Cool! (well, it would be nice for it to be
cooling, but not yet...)

Hee Hee. You jinxed yourself, Skippy! It's been less than a month now since
you were bragging about how well your fridge was working even with the keel
out of water. I bet it sprung a leak and all the refrigerant leaked out.

My electrical-taped condenser is still staying nice and cold and the
pressures remain the same so no leaks. My solar panels are really doing a
good job since I bought all new batteries a couple weeks ago. Four new 12v
deep cycles (group 24) to replace the old ones that were four years old and
not charging too well anymore. Lots of bubbling away of electrolyte and
getting warm but not much charge retention. So, they're history. New ones
don't bubble and they seem to accept all the charge going into them. My beer
is outstandlingly cold and my batteries are at about 13.0 volts even after
all night with a Hela fan running to keep me cool in the v-berth.


Wilbur Hubbard

Shifting sands
 

On Thu, 28 Jul 2011 08:04:48 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

Hi, Bruce,



About 12 total feet of 2" pipe has been reduced from a rough gray, with
some
manufacturing marks and dings removed, to a flawless 400-grit, ready for
polish. The 3.5" pipe which will replace the rotted structure on the
roller
system is to a 220 grit; two more to go. The plates on the end of this
pipe, when installed, are ready for polish.


I'm amazed at what you are saying. "Most Stainless Guys" use a 4 inch
angle grinder with a selection of "flap" wheels in various grits and
then a series of felt buffing wheels with at least two abrasives
(rouge being the coarest). The real serious people use dedicated hand
held polishers. 12 ft of rail is hardly a day's work :-)

I have done some flap-wheel prep on mill-finish work, and that particular
set of SS (became the brackets to our stern platform) STILL has the
scratches.

Then you were either: (1) Using the wrong technique, or (2) using the
wrong wheels. I use flap wheels on a 6 inch bench grinder as a first
step in a polishing program. I got this idea from the local chrome
plating shop.

Otherwise, the sequence of what I was doing is as you describe -
80/120/220/320/400 grit with an air 6" DA, then (the guy who's doing the
welding was kind enough to let me do the polishing to that point) the shop's
10" wheel and rouge/finer takes over from there.

Just how bad is your stainless? I would use 80 grit as a first step
from rough metal, or as a fine grinding wheel, for example to radius a
corner weld.

Despite what you say, avoiding flats and dishes on a round item,
particularly one without a large radius, is hard enough with a wide wheel,
let alone a small one. The stuff I'd done with flap wheel was flat, MUCH
easier to get it all - but it still left scratches after some very
aggressive polishing after the flapwheels.


Regardless, that is how this amazing craftsman (I've seen his work - once
bitten, twice shy, from prior SS work, particularly my arch - so have
confidence in the outcome) does it. I could (and likely would) do worse
than to do something else. Keeping the pipe and sander moving (no flats) is
the biggest challenge; the rest is grunt work.


I assume that if you are working with teak that you know that
breathing the sanding dust is not good for you. At least the people
here all believe it.

Yah, I know. Darth Vader mask and goggles.


Teak, by the way, in a country, where it once was plentiful, is now
extremely expensive. I can't even begin to guess what it would cost in
a foreign country :-)

My bitch about all this is that the material was a relatively small part of
the costs. I asked how much more in materials it would be for teak and the
difference was under 10%. The dance began when I sourced some locally at a
surplus joint (where he got the trim for the forward head), which sells it
by the pound. One of his "selling" points was that teak would be very
heavy, vs. the stuff he used which, admittedly, is lightweight - but, so's
Balsa (I used to be a modeler)! He claimed what they had wasn't teak - yet,
he used what they had to do the trim - and that he couldn't get any from any
other supplier.

"Teak" is supposed to be one species of tropical hardwood but it seems
to vary a rather large amount in both density and color from place to
place. But as a general statement it is not either a very hard or
heavy wood - it is actually a species of tropical birch, at least not
in comparison to other tropical hardwoods. You can indent teak with
your thumbnail, for example. If you have been around it you can even
identify it by smell.

But for boat use it's major strong point is that it is a very oily
wood and lasts well if exposed, as in a deck, nor do bugs eat it. For
interior trim it has no particular virtue - unless you have termites
on board :-)

Regardless, we're faced with the near certainty of having to do it over. As
I'd never worked with it, I had no idea how soft this stuff was, so allowed
myself to be bullied into accepting it. As it was, in the end, the
workmanship was so abominable (which, just in finish alone, was why Lydia
has spent so much time on the table), notably the "cabinetry" (making all
line up, and keeping flush stuff flush) that I'm half-glad that it wasn't
teak, or it would have been ruined.

He may do great furniture and cabinetry, but he sure doesn't do marine stuff
worth a flip, including using standard steel screws (or, at least, they
stick to my marginally magnetized screwdriver - WTF was he thinking?!?). The
only actual stainless stuff on this table is hardware I provided (rebated
from the price he quoted, as agreed).

Tomorrow, the Raymarine guy who actually keeps his promise (two prior have
not, one multiple times, the other merely refusing to even answer the
phone
when I call to ask when he'll be here - he left to get a cable to test our
new triducer, after a few minutes aboard to assess the work, and never
came
back) to show up will be here to install the new triducer for the
fishfinder. Today I pulled the old one's wires through to the bow, with
accompanying strings for leads for the new single cable, removed the
Y-valve, and generally made ready for installation.

Further to the reliability/responsibility of this vendor, this AM, a couple
of hours before our agreed start time , I got an email from him saying he'd
be a bit late, as he had a sea trial he had to do before he got here - but
that he WAS going to be here, just a bit later than originally agreed. The
prior two would have, in the first case, said nothing whatever, and, in the
three prior appointments, never showed up at all, and in the second, just
disappeared and then screened my calls as confirmed by another yard buddy
getting picked up on the same number immediately after one of my calls.
"I'm sorry, we're totally buried - I can't do your work. You'll have to
find someone else." would have been an appropriate dodge if, for some
reason, he just didn't want the job. WTF is wrong with contractors? Are
they so buried with work that they don't have to think about the reputation
they generate by such behavior?

/rant :{))

L8R

Skip

Cheers,

Bruce

Shifting sands
 

Hi, Wilbur, and readers worldwide,

The last couple of days I've been sanding stainless steel, taking either
rusty, dinged, material which is still on the boat, or new, to replace
it, mill finish, tube and plate, for the bow roller cage and assembly, to
brilliant.

Good grief. What you're saying is you let your stainless steel go
neglected for so long that you have to sand off the rust? Holy Cow! All
it takes is a going over about once a month with some Never Dull and it
stays looking like new. Mine is 40 years old and still looks and shines
like new. Have you ever heard the old saying, "A stitch in time saves
nine?" Wake up, Skippy.

Heh. Getting to it is nearly impossible. However, more significantly, the
surface rust (which came right off) was a product of the makeshift (in the
end - this repair will end all that for the lifetime of our ownership at
minimum, and likely get much more than the 30 years which brought us to this
point) repairs in St. Augustine, which were never passivated, let alone
polished, along with some of the "rotting" other steel we've removed and are
replacing. You'd know that if you ever went to my gallery to snoop on the
refits we've done, or just paid attention to my logs, rather than only
sniping at them :{)) BTW, this/these of late aren't logs, they're just
day-to-day activities in the boatyard.

(about our cockpit table dissatisfactions)

Forget the wood. Nowadays there is a plastic called "Star Board" It comes
in brown that looks like teak and it will last a lifetime and it never
needs varnish. Get rid of the wood and replace it with Star Board and kiss
your wood-slave days goodbye!

Heh. Talk about heavy, especially in the size needed to construct the
table. Not to mention ugly as dirt. OTOH, if it is hard enough to drill
and tap, perhaps that would do for a makeshift until we got the actual teak.

Unlike others, we have SOME teak accents aboard - but a lot of white paint.
When we were first looking at boats, Lydia was totally turned off by white
interiors. Now that she's lived with mostly-white (lots of teak
accents/trim), as I was showing her the newer models of our type, with wider
and longer pulpit center teak, she complained about how dark most of them
were inside - a product of all that teak she was so sure she wanted :{))


snippage

The most recent "Peril of Pauline" is our refrigeration/freezer seeming
to be taking a dump. Long story which I'll not encumber you with,
especially as it's not over yet, but various fixes I've done in the past
when this symptom (no cool, compressor's running, or Smart Speed Control
doesn't seem to be acting right) showed up occasionally have had no
effect. Thus, going from perfect function (8° and 32° in freezer and
reefer boxes, even in 90+ heat) to having NO heat removal since sometime
last night, this has a heightened sense of urgency. Even if I get it to
work again, we're going to have to do something "final" about it before
we cast off, as, if it's not resolved, it will only get worse in the
wilds of wherever we are. As the techs I've spoken with can't tell from
the symptoms what it is, we're about to get expensive, likely, as we
track down what's really happening so we can address it. Cool! (well,
it would be nice for it to be cooling, but not yet...)

Hee Hee. You jinxed yourself, Skippy!

Heh. The thought occurred to me :{/)

It's been less than a month now since you were bragging about how well
your fridge was working even with the keel out of water. I bet it sprung
a leak and all the refrigerant leaked out.

I don't know about "springing" a leak, but in my forays into the engine room
for diagnosis, I touched the lines to the keel cooler. They should be hot
and hotter. Instead, despite the compressor running, they're both cool.

However, on the yellow line (I'd have to see if that's inbound or outbound,
cuz I don't remember), under the silver connector, the brass nut and a very
slight portion of the tube were wet. Thin enough not to be oil, but thick
enough to possibly be.

So, you may be right about the freon (oops - R134A) situation. I have a set
of gauges, but need to get the adapter which will allow me to put the can on
the schrader valve cap before I start messing around in it.

In the meantime, I'm taking advantage of the forced defrost to clean out the
freezer, and repair a small ding in one part of the fiberglass/gelcoat on
part of the freezer door lid. While I'm at it, I'll add extra gasketing to
the reefer door, as it isn't entirely tight on the outside (inner and outer
gaskets).


My electrical-taped condenser is still staying nice and cold and the
pressures remain the same so no leaks. My solar panels are really doing a
good job since I bought all new batteries a couple weeks ago. Four new 12v
deep cycles (group 24) to replace the old ones that were four years old
and not charging too well anymore. Lots of bubbling away of electrolyte
and getting warm but not much charge retention. So, they're history. New
ones don't bubble and they seem to accept all the charge going into them.
My beer is outstandlingly cold and my batteries are at about 13.0 volts
even after all night with a Hela fan running to keep me cool in the
v-berth.

If you only got 4 years out of your batteries, you were abusing them, or
they were junk. A properly set up solar system would keep your batteries
fully charged during the day. Indeed, despite our original, blem, batteries
(4x L16H) having been woefully abused by the defective charger I had all the
time in the initial refit, we got more than 5 years out of them before I
replaced them, mostly on a preventive (we were leaving the country) basis.
I rarely discharge more than 20%, which will make for a much longer battery
life...

L8R

Skip


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

"And then again, when you sit at the helm of your little ship on a
clear night, and gaze at the countless stars overhead, and realize that you
are quite alone on a wide, wide sea, it is apt to occur to you that in the
general scheme of things you are merely an insignificant speck on the
surface of the ocean; and are not nearly so important or as self-sufficient
as you thought you were. Which is an exceedingly wholesome thought, and one
that may effect a permanent change in your deportment that will be greatly
appreciated by your friends."- James S. Pitkin

Shifting sands
 

Hi, Bruce, and other readers worldwide (I wonder how many there actually are
besides the anonymous knee-jerk Neal-bashers, "Wilbur", Cavelamb, you and a
couple of others - even "Bob" hasn't fired a shot in a while, and Roger's
off cruising - a quickie "here I am" response would shed some light on the
question...),

I'm amazed at what you are saying. "Most Stainless Guys" use a 4 inch
angle grinder with a selection of "flap" wheels in various grits and
then a series of felt buffing wheels with at least two abrasives
(rouge being the coarest). The real serious people use dedicated hand
held polishers. 12 ft of rail is hardly a day's work :-)

I have done some flap-wheel prep on mill-finish work, and that particular
set of SS (became the brackets to our stern platform) STILL has the
scratches.

Then you were either: (1) Using the wrong technique, or (2) using the
wrong wheels. I use flap wheels on a 6 inch bench grinder as a first
step in a polishing program. I got this idea from the local chrome
plating shop.

Doing what I had on a bench grinder (other than the cloth steps, which,
indeed, is what he used for the final brilliant level, albeit with a 10"
post-mounted one, open, allowing more access) and flap wheels (wait! - are
you speaking of radial flaps, or horizontal flaps? I've never seen radial
flaps for a grinder) would have been very challenging.


Otherwise, the sequence of what I was doing is as you describe -
80/120/220/320/400 grit with an air 6" DA, then (the guy who's doing the
welding was kind enough to let me do the polishing to that point) the
shop's
10" wheel and rouge/finer takes over from there.

Just how bad is your stainless? I would use 80 grit as a first step
from rough metal, or as a fine grinding wheel, for example to radius a
corner weld.

The stuff was mill finish - an even gray (if you discount the dings and the
relatively straight lines in some cases). I have lots of pix of the
process, but have not yet processed them or put them up on my gallery, but
that WILL happen, under a "new material" section of the anchor system repair
in the 2011 refit gallery.

The stuff on the boat wasn't bad at all - but it wasn't very accessible,
making polishing (well, still sanding, not yet to the cloth stage) a bit
challenging. I think I'm at the 220 stage there, but as I've been busy
doing other things at the moment, don't remember what grade is still stuck
to my Makita :{))


Despite what you say, avoiding flats and dishes on a round item,
particularly one without a large radius, is hard enough with a wide wheel,
let alone a small one. The stuff I'd done with flap wheel was flat, MUCH
easier to get it all - but it still left scratches after some very
aggressive polishing after the flapwheels.

Here, I'm referring to 4.5" disks with layered sanding surfaces. If I'd had
(never seen them, other than for drill-mount...) radial flaps, it probably
would have made a difference...



"Teak" is supposed to be one species of tropical hardwood but it seems
to vary a rather large amount in both density and color from place to
place. But as a general statement it is not either a very hard or
heavy wood - it is actually a species of tropical birch, at least not
in comparison to other tropical hardwoods. You can indent teak with
your thumbnail, for example. If you have been around it you can even
identify it by smell.

Indeed. When I'm scavenging, I cut a little with my knife and give it a
sniff before I take it.


But for boat use it's major strong point is that it is a very oily
wood and lasts well if exposed, as in a deck, nor do bugs eat it. For
interior trim it has no particular virtue - unless you have termites
on board :-)

:{)) None yet! But it sure is pretty when it's varnished!

L8R

Skip, on to trying to figure out why my fishfinder will power up, but not
again unless I remove the power lead after shutting it down, and tackling
the refrigeration


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to
make it come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in
its hand."
(Richard Bach, in "Illusions of a Reluctant Messiah"

Shifting sands
 

On Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:39:48 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

Hi, Bruce, and other readers worldwide (I wonder how many there actually are
besides the anonymous knee-jerk Neal-bashers, "Wilbur", Cavelamb, you and a
couple of others - even "Bob" hasn't fired a shot in a while, and Roger's
off cruising - a quickie "here I am" response would shed some light on the
question...),


Yo.
Keep 'em coming.

--Vic

Shifting sands
 

"Flying Pig" wrote in message
...
Hi, Wilbur, and readers worldwide,

The last couple of days I've been sanding stainless steel, taking either
rusty, dinged, material which is still on the boat, or new, to replace
it, mill finish, tube and plate, for the bow roller cage and assembly,
to brilliant.

Good grief. What you're saying is you let your stainless steel go
neglected for so long that you have to sand off the rust? Holy Cow! All
it takes is a going over about once a month with some Never Dull and it
stays looking like new. Mine is 40 years old and still looks and shines
like new. Have you ever heard the old saying, "A stitch in time saves
nine?" Wake up, Skippy.

Heh. Getting to it is nearly impossible. However, more significantly,
the surface rust (which came right off) was a product of the makeshift (in
the end - this repair will end all that for the lifetime of our ownership
at minimum, and likely get much more than the 30 years which brought us to
this point) repairs in St. Augustine, which were never passivated, let
alone polished, along with some of the "rotting" other steel we've removed
and are replacing. You'd know that if you ever went to my gallery to
snoop on the refits we've done, or just paid attention to my logs, rather
than only sniping at them :{)) BTW, this/these of late aren't logs,
they're just day-to-day activities in the boatyard.

Getting to it is nearly impossible??? Duh! Next time you're having a beer
(or two) break out the Never Dull and polish something for about ten
minutes. In no time at all you'll have all the SS sparkling. This should be
routine maintenance not confined to haul-outs. Use some Whink to remove any
rust stains on your white paint or gel coat.

(about our cockpit table dissatisfactions)

Forget the wood. Nowadays there is a plastic called "Star Board" It comes
in brown that looks like teak and it will last a lifetime and it never
needs varnish. Get rid of the wood and replace it with Star Board and
kiss your wood-slave days goodbye!

Heh. Talk about heavy, especially in the size needed to construct the
table. Not to mention ugly as dirt. OTOH, if it is hard enough to drill
and tap, perhaps that would do for a makeshift until we got the actual
teak.

You're right about the weight. The stuff is quite heavy. It can be drilled
and tapped and even wood screws work with the right-sized pilot holes. For
something like a folding cockpit table you could use probably 1/4" which
would not be prohibitively heavy. And, your rot and maintenance problems
with it would be gone forever. There's something very attractive about
maintenance-free on a boat. The few sticks of teak I have left on the
exterior of my boat (companionway hatch slider) I have prepped and painted
blue. A good paint job lasts a lot longer than a varnish job and it's much
easier to touch up. Sailing should be more about sailing and less about
maintenance.

Unlike others, we have SOME teak accents aboard - but a lot of white
paint. When we were first looking at boats, Lydia was totally turned off
by white interiors. Now that she's lived with mostly-white (lots of teak
accents/trim), as I was showing her the newer models of our type, with
wider and longer pulpit center teak, she complained about how dark most of
them were inside - a product of all that teak she was so sure she wanted
:{))

Same here. The inside of my yacht is mostly an off-white with teak accents.
The white bulkheads and other white surfaces are so much nicer than dark
wood and they are easier to keep clean and new-looking. I used glossy
Formica on the extra bulkhead I installed and trimmed around the edges with
pine stained mahogany. It looks great. Spraying all the inside surfaces with
glass cleaner and wiping with a paper towell makes them look like new. Even
the overhead that does collect a film of cooking oils, dust, etc. Again,
it's all low maintenance.





snippage

The most recent "Peril of Pauline" is our refrigeration/freezer seeming
to be taking a dump. Long story which I'll not encumber you with,
especially as it's not over yet, but various fixes I've done in the past
when this symptom (no cool, compressor's running, or Smart Speed Control
doesn't seem to be acting right) showed up occasionally have had no
effect. Thus, going from perfect function (8° and 32° in freezer and
reefer boxes, even in 90+ heat) to having NO heat removal since sometime
last night, this has a heightened sense of urgency. Even if I get it to
work again, we're going to have to do something "final" about it before
we cast off, as, if it's not resolved, it will only get worse in the
wilds of wherever we are. As the techs I've spoken with can't tell from
the symptoms what it is, we're about to get expensive, likely, as we
track down what's really happening so we can address it. Cool! (well,
it would be nice for it to be cooling, but not yet...)

Hee Hee. You jinxed yourself, Skippy!

Heh. The thought occurred to me :{/)

It's been less than a month now since you were bragging about how well
your fridge was working even with the keel out of water. I bet it
sprung a leak and all the refrigerant leaked out.

I don't know about "springing" a leak, but in my forays into the engine
room for diagnosis, I touched the lines to the keel cooler. They should
be hot and hotter. Instead, despite the compressor running, they're both
cool.

No compression, then. It might mean a clog but it probably means a leak with
low or no pressure. Hope that that brass nut just vibrated loose and after a
tightening it will hold pressure.


However, on the yellow line (I'd have to see if that's inbound or
outbound, cuz I don't remember), under the silver connector, the brass nut
and a very slight portion of the tube were wet. Thin enough not to be
oil, but thick enough to possibly be.

So, you may be right about the freon (oops - R134A) situation. I have a
set of gauges, but need to get the adapter which will allow me to put the
can on the schrader valve cap before I start messing around in it.

I got mine from NAPA - they had it in stock. But, to install it involved
removing the Schrader valve in the original so the new one could be screwed
on piggyback as it has it's own Schrader valve. An excellent time to add the
adapter is when the system is low on or out of refrigerant because you will
lose it anyway when you remove the original Schrader valve. You will also
need a schrader valve tool.

Wilbur Hubbard

Shifting sands
 

On 29/07/2011 8:52 AM, Vic Smith wrote:
On Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:39:48 -0400, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

Hi, Bruce, and other readers worldwide (I wonder how many there actually are
besides the anonymous knee-jerk Neal-bashers, "Wilbur", Cavelamb, you and a
couple of others - even "Bob" hasn't fired a shot in a while, and Roger's
off cruising - a quickie "here I am" response would shed some light on the
question...),


Yo.
Keep 'em coming.

--Vic

Reading with interest.
Hoges on the Chesapeake
Getting our 42 MkII ready to head down your way in November.