Prepping for bottom paint...

Tonight I had an extra hour or so to work on the boat, so I crawled under and continued the scraping process. Earlier in the project I had sanded some of the old bottom paint, but did not get all the way under the trailer due to mud (and laziness).

I started tonight on those areas. Instead of the sander, I just dry scraped. The old paint came off relatively easy. The red primer was still hard as a rock and embedded deep in the wood, so that will stay. The various coats of "whatever" paint came off.

I finished from the transom all the way to just in front of the trailer axles. From there forward should be easier as there is less trailer to get in the way.

Also, climbing under the boat and working on every plank allowed me to get a really good impression of the condition of all of the planks, fasteners and seams:

The good news - all of the planks are in great shape. There is no rot. Also there are no gaps in the seams between the planks. The only gap is between the keel and the garboards. It was filled with caulk, which is now gone. I will replace it.

The bad news. All of the putty covering the plank fasteners came out with the paint. That will have to be refilled. A little bit more work, but I gave up on my Memorial Day launch plans anyway.

Earlier in the week, I tested the engine connections and attached the seals on the cowl hood.

Boot Stripe and Hull tags

Worked on painting some more this weekend.

I taped and masked up for the boot stripe all the way around the boat. And then painted it black. There are a couple of spots that'll need to be touched up, but all in all, the tape worked. I used "Frog Tape". It is a green painter's tape, made for auto painting.

Then, I put on the hull tags that I ordered through Lyman Boat Works.

This past weekend...

I got some more work done.

(not pictured) I put the final coat of white on the sides of the hull. Next I'll do the boot stripe and then the bottom.

I put the rest of the rub rails on and touched up a little of the green paint where I misjudged how much the rail would cover.

I then pulled all of the canvas that came with the boat out of the basement. I haven't really looked at it. I was fully expecting it to be completely unusable. I was wrong. The main top was dirty, but fully intact. I hit it with a hose and a little elbow grease, and it's nearly good enough to use as is. It started out almost battleship gray, and turned out like this...

(not pictured)The top that goes from the main top to the stern was in perfect shape. I was totally surprised. I hosed off the dust, and it was good to go. The side curtains may need a little more work. The plastic windows are creased from being rolled up for so long and there are rust stains on the canvas. So they'll need more cleaning.

I have not given up

I know. I haven't posted in a month. With the antique show last week and all the other stuff, I haven't had a lot of time to work on the boat.

But I got out there today.

Today I started putting some of the hardware back on. I put part of the rubrails back on, and put the bow light and the dock line guide thingies (another nautical term that I haven't learned). When I hooked it up to a battery, the bow light did not work, though. There's a break in the line somewhere. I'm probably going to replace the line entirely, rather than trying to hunt down the short.

I also ran the pitot tube for the speedometer and the wires for the trim/lift control from the dash to the stern.

Isabel was a big help.