The Department of Redundancy Department

My posts are starting to sound redundant.

Lots of varnishing, waiting a day, rubbing steel wool, and varnishing some more. I have been working on the deck, rear bench seat, and interior panels. Here are some pictures...

Sweet...

I finally got the old steering system disassembled and removed from the boat. For shits and giggles, I fished the cable through the port side, just under the gunwale and was able to get it to reach the engine. Hooray! I don't have to buy a $200 steering system to replace it. I just have to figure out a way to attach the end of the cable to the front of the engine on the port side. The existing bracket is on the back of the engine on the starboard side. I'll also have to figure out a way to attach it to the splashwell.

I also put another coat of varnish on the deck, another coat on the rear bench and the first coat on the interior paneling.

Headway...

Today I put the first coat of varnish on the deck. It really brought out the gold tones in the wood. Those concerns I had about the bow being darker than the rest of the boat - gone.

I finished removing the extra starter box, it's associated cables and ignition switches.

Then I started painting the bilge. Messy, back-breaking work. Needless to say, I did not last long. I got about a third of it done.

Staining, Staining, and more Staining...

The other day, I stained the bow deck. The wood, being extremely dry, soaked up the stain like a sponge. As such, it came out a tad darker than I expected. It's not offensively dark, just about a half-shade darker than some of the other wood. Once the chrome pieces are put back on, I don't think it'll be noticeable.

Today, I did some work out in the boat house. But I didn't bring the camera. I did some more work taking apart the mechanicals and re-running the cables. The existing wiring for the choke and ignition, with a little rearranging was able to reach the dash from the starter box. No new wiring needed.

Later, I started staining the bench seat and the panels for the interior. I may not have mentioned that I am going to line the interior with wood panels. I figure it would be easier than stripping and refinishing the inside of all the planks and ribs. Plus, some Lymans were sold with panelled interiors as optional features.

More...

Today, I got a bunch of little things done. It rained last night so the ground was wet under the boat. I was not terribly inclined to go crawling under the boat to scrape some more. Yes, I am procrastinating.

I started off today working indoors. I built a motor stand out of some scrap wood. I am going to have to take off the motor in order to refinish the transom. As soon as I can get a couple of people over to the house, I'll get the motor lifted off. I can't do it myself, I'm not exactly Lou Ferrigno.

After that, I started scraping and sanding the seat for the aft bench. The wood seems to have cleaned up nicely. My next challenge there is matching the stain color.

The spottyness in the picture is from wetness from where I used a damp rag to clean up the saw dust and to see what the grain looked like.

I then ventured outside. I worked some more on the bow deck. Scraping around the lifting ring and sanding with 200 grit sandpaper. It is almost ready for stain and varnish.

That spottyness is for the same reason as above.

After that, I got a look at my workspace. What a mess. So I spent some time cleaning, organizing my tools, throwing away garbage and scraps, picking up screws and nuts and bolts, and hitting everything with a rag and the shop vac.

With a few minutes of bug-free evening left, I did some scraping and sanding on the transom.

Deck Work

Today I continued working on the deck. I scraped the finish off the kingplank (thanks "anonymous", I'm slowly learning the 'language'), and continued sanding the deck. The kingplank is mostly done except for just around the "hoop thing" in the center (another nautical term that I don't know). The finish on the kingplank probably did not need to come off because it was very strong. But I want it to match when it's all done.

For the rest of the deck, I continued working my way down to finer grade sandpaper. It's going to look nice.