Still Alive...

Noel has been taking all my time... since... August.

So, for any curiosity of what I have been up to boat wise... click here: http://83footernoel.blogspot.com/

Pylasteki's time will come once more. After the big boat is in the water, I'll be free'd up... till then it's a rush order to get the rail freed up for other jobs.

Zach

So... Another week has gone by (for all intents...)

I've pulled off the stainless rubrail, and de-gooped it with a razor blade. I think there is some pre-historic silicone present... so working dillegently to remove all traces before sanding anything. Thats three nights work. The yard moved her out of the way, so I had to jockey my pile of lumber and table, tarp, cockpit parts... etc from one side to the other, and clean up my old spot of spent box fans, grinding discs, and vacuums... grin.

I've been building a staging, stacking up pallets and laying 2x10's across them I think it'll work out nicely. Really wish she was blocked higher for doing bottom work, but kind of nice for setting up staging, I'm 3 high in the bow and two in the back.

Noel has been keeping me busy otherwise... rebuilding the transom, and resheathing 30 feet of plywood and glass from the waterline to rub rail on both sides... Stepping slowly away from the skill saw... but, rotten wood is my bane... kinda stole priority from Pylasteki.

Zach

Progress report.

I've removed my pushpit, outboard, outboard bracket. De-lettered, pulled off the stainless trim on the transom... and de-greased. Made a long board that takes two 16 inch pieces of air file paper out of a piece of scrap starboard a friend gave me, cut out some handles on the bandsaw and rounded them over with my router. Countersunk the screws put in one per side so the handles can rotate and turn to whatever position is easiest on the wrists.

Went to town on the transom with 36 grit paper for an hour. Pulled out some 40 grit on the 7335 for a half hour... Decided I'd try a power planer. Neglected to look at the condition of the blades before starting.... derrr. Forgot I banged a nail working on Noels decks a few weeks ago. The gelcoat is chalk. I've got a full coat of white, over a full coat of black as thick as Pearson is known for doing. (almost a 1/4 inch along the stem!) Still in the white gel, I want to take it back as far as I can so whatever cracks don't show through. Plus I figure that much chalk must weigh something.... grin. Running my hands around the hull, my port aft lower chainplate knee is a bump on the outside of the hull. Dusting on some flat black paint on the transom, you can clearly see the back stay chainplate knee outlined. I'm a little amused at the thickness, currently I'm planning to knock it back down, tomorrow I'll grab a worn out flap disc and artfully sculpt it down... don't follow the instructions for polishing stainless, 15-20 degree angle.. lay it flat and use about the same touch as a you'd sculpt styrofoam with a blow torch.... Vertical passes only so no scars running through curves are put in that can't easily be longboarded out...

Fun fun fun! Bottom paint is almost all gone. It really is amazing the difference good sandpaper makes... just have to be on the ball enough to know when its surpassed its useful life!

My previous wailings about the cost of paint and other goodies requires that I do some talking for my fellow budget minded folks. My polycarbonate came in... in case anyone wants the good stuff, track down a plastics distributor well in advance of when you need the stuff. Put in a request that they keep the remnants of a size slightly larger than what you need rather than making scrap from a full sheet. I go through Piedmont Plastics. 5 pieces of GE MR10 (Structural glazing, the stuff they use on skyscrapers... 10 year UV package, 10 year scratch) in 1/2 inch for 50 bucks a piece. The sheet is almost a thousand bucks retail. Same thing for the Phenolic... bought a hunk of 3/4 14x24 for 50 bucks. Full sheet of that would be 1700 full retail. Helps to scrounge, but you have to know what you want... and how much. Some came from Nashville, one from Sanfrancisco... If you don't care that it'll take two weeks for trucks going from one warehouse to another to play connect the dots, it'll save you a lot of money.

Saw yesterday that my backstay's upper clevis pin is teeny tiny, same size as the 1/4 inch stuff on the jumper stays.

Zach

Day... I've lost count, but my wallet hurts.

What a 48 year old piece of phenolic looks like... I think. Grin. That is Pylasteki's masthead sheave, or for the non-boat speakers... the pulley at the top of the mast the rope goes over so you can put up a sail.

I'm currently in Greensboro on account of parts hunting, and machine shop time.

Today I:

Ordered 2 inch by 14 inch x .250 silicon bronze bar stock... 10 pieces. Couple spares, deciding if I want split back stays... Pulled the trigger on 41 bucks each, had another quote come back later today at 30 each. Doh.

Ordered a piece of 3/4 inch phenolic 14 x 23 inches... gonna make a new sheave and spare... $53

Priced out a sheets of 1/2 inch acrylic, 1/2 inch polycarbonate... xr10 and mr10... (Ouchie on the last one.) Probably going to do 1/2 inch polycarbonate with a UV package, and a sheet of 1/8th inch acrylic in front of it as a sacrificial scratch shield/uv filter.

Went to woodcraft... picked up some goodies I've been lusting over. Mmmm. Ouchie. Mainly a half decent compass so I can quit moaning about the inadequacies of plastic and stamped steel cheese metal.

Zach

Mast tabernacle and interior shots

Yesterday...

Brian welded up the compression tube and doublers, and filled some of the holes where stuff used to bolt.

While he was running the Tig, I spent some time going over the "list" making sure that all the measurements needed were taken. After the welding was done, I scribed the arc the mast goes through by turning the plate from side to side riding a pencil on the mast. Then transferring the line a 1/2 inch further up... Picked up a plasma cutter, and gave it a try... then backed slowly away and grabbed my trusty jigsaw. Grin. I'm not that artful with something that cuts as fast as plasma...

While I was finishing up fish mouthing the tube... (see picture) he made a new set of jumper strut adjusters. The old ones were crusty aluminum and eaten away... new ones are pieces of stainless allthread.

Finished up around noon, loaded it back up on the truck (tire on the roof of the truck, tire on the back of a trailer... me in the back of the truck picking it up and walking side to side for tight corners.

I bought a bolt with a real wide shoulder, as I'm not sure if this will be my last mast on Pylasteki. I'm going to make a set of plates to carry the boom vang, so when I want to drop the mast everything will rotate around the same pivot point.

Then it was time to get started doing some glass work... except I reached exhaustion, mainly heat... 93 degrees and 80% humidity, all I wanted to do was sleep. Tried to work through it, but no dice... about all I finished was hot coating the plywood panels going into the cockpit. After that I ran over to West Marine to run some pricing on the random tidbits... in airconditioning!
When it cooled off, I went back to... sanding bottom paint. Unfit for anything but the mindless monotony, of waking up to discover that piece of sandpaper had died a long slow death and quit sanding 5 minutes ago...

Smooooth.

Last nights work, hand sanded the rudder tube to add more fiberglass.

Zach

Day 17

Day 17

Today I ground down my through hull patches again... This seems to be a generic way to start the day. I'm impressed with how much glass it takes to fill a boat this thick! Still have a ways to go on two of them. I'm using a really flexible batten to follow the curve of the hull, that and my semi-tuned finger tips for the vertical curvy'ness.

With that done I marked my lines on the cockpit sole and sides... and cut out the sole forward the plywood support, and leaving some meat around the top so it would hold its shape. Tritons are beasts... I can step on the edge of the sole I left (4-5 inches wide depending on the location of the reinforcement...) and it hardly deflects. I think if they'd run the reinforcements side to side instead of fore and aft, it wouldn't bow and squeak!

Anyway, took about 2 minutes to cut it out... and about 5 to just look at it and visualize where the lower water pump bolt... distributor clamp... and transmission clutch adjusting bolt... used to be. By golly, with a lift up lid right there, I might keep an inboard in a triton. Idea noted...

With that done I cut out the starboard cockpit bulkhead, and ground down the tabbing. It had 3 layers of roving... and mat. By golly, that made a lot of dust!

I then went to town cutting out the cockpit locker lid drains. These things have a crazy amount of drop to them, I'm thinking Pearson intended them to be stiffeners... but if you've ever tried to pull a fender out of a locker, or worse... shimmied inside one to take something loose from the deck... they are some kind of in the way. I do believe they'd probably still drain downward with the lid underwater though...

After that I measured down from the deck at intervals, sort of the reverse of lofting a boat... and made a template for my plywood bulkheads that will run along side the cockpit. I then cut out the wooden reinforcement on the port side, that kept the cutout for the locker lid from bowing in and out. I'm bringing the plywood up almost to the edge, as I want the thing never to squeak again when I step on it. The cockpit is the one place on a triton, besides the chainplates... that doesn't scream absolute, absurd overkill... so it must be brought inline with the rest of the boat. Grin.

With that done, I cut out a template for the starboard cockpit bulkhead... and ceremoniously tossed the old skinny one overboard.

I'm going to install my seacocks officially when I've glassed in everything. Stupid... yes. I just know I'll need an access hatch somewhere, in order to put on a hose clamp or something dumb... and the only way I know how to get it right the first time, is to install it when the rest is already there. I call it the heater core theory. Cars, they start with a heater core as the blank slate... then they put a firewall on oneside, with a hole slightly smaller than the core... then they install a dashboard to its backside... Fastest way to replace one, is to buy a new heater core and build a car around it... Nothing on this boat will be like that if I can help it!

I then got started sawzalling out the starboard side cockpit locker lid drains... and had a guy wander out of his boat around 9:30... guess he was spending the night aboard... So I quieted it down and packed up for the evening.

Zach - clogged up another set of pre-filters, and wondered why the world started spinning... Obituary reads - "Suffocated by respirator."