March 23 and 24 - Removing old Antifulling from the hull - stripping and sanding

Since the underwater hull seems to have a lot of paint layers and I suspected that stripping most of the paint layer would take me a long time, I decided to try a hempel stripping chymical. It works well but timing is the key word. In the first experience I took too long time between product aplication and stripping so paint was to dry to be removed. Finally I tunned the timing  to more or less one square meter per aplication.

March 19 and 22 - Preparing the hull for painting

The existent paint in the hull its in a good shape so I decided to just sand it without stripping. I used grit 120 but maybe I will san it again with 240.

March 18 and 19 - Preparing the Deck for painting - Manual Sanding

Now its time to sand that places where the orbital sander don't reach... and find weak places to be fixed by new fiber and resin layers. In the example below I show holes in places where the pulpit are supposed to be attached. Can you imagine what would happen if didn't identify it by striping all the old paint ?

Is interesting that the same grid mean different as it is used manually or by a tool. With the tool I used grit 80 to reach a nice look. With manual sanding, 120 is the proper grid for a nice finishing.

In the end of the moorning of March 19,  i start to sand the hull, photos in the next post...

March 17 - Cleaning the bulor of the Cabin

A lot of bulor had grow in the humid environment of the cabin due to rain water that leaked inside.

March 16 - Preparing the Deck for painting with orbital sander

Sanding the Deck Sides

March 15 - Preparing the Deck for Painting

I am finally in holidays with spare time to spend with my dear H19 after long time without any possibility to work on her, partially due to the weather...

I continued in the point where I stoped, sanding the deck, with grid 60-80.

I still have one doubt, what is the most proper sand papper, the white one or the red one ?

Very willing griffing

great reading

December Till February: Sanding for Paint preparation

In the last months I had been sanding the cockpit with grade 60/80 with the orbital sander, as first step of the painting preparation. My litle beautifull daughter Júlia and the wheater (strong winds and rain) didn't let me much time for the boat. 

Today is March 6 and theres a lot to do till the project is finished. More than one year has past since the start, much more time than I iniatialy estimated. The follow steps will be :

1) Sand the rest of deck for paint preparation with 80 and then all the deck again with 120

2) Strip the old antifuling fro the hull

3) Sand Hull for new anti-fuling preparation

4)  Fiber and resin works:

    (4.1) Reinforce desk/hull joint

    (4.2) fiber the bulkheads to the hull

    (4.3) Cover with resin all the holes in the fiber

    (4.4) build another hatch in GRP.

    (4.5) Build the rudder Head with fiber and resign

5) Reifit the seats wood structure and test it in place, but not assembling

6) Build up the cabin ground with plywood, apply epoxy cover and test it up in place, but not assembling

7) Paint the bottom of the cabin with dinbolin

8) Fix the cabin ground with GRP to the hull

9) Paint the cabin with dinbolin

10) Fix the seat structure

11) Paint the primary in Deck and hull

12) Paint the Deck with mono-component in red, using roller and/or brush, or ask a cotation for professional deck and hull spraying.

13) Paint the water line with mono-componente in white, using roller and/or brush, or ask a cotation for professional deck and hull spraying.

14) Paint the Hull in Dark Blue with mono-componente Anti-fuling with copper technology

15) Assemble deck gear, as winches.

16) build up a tiller for the rudder and rudder head

September to November: Stripping old paint from the Deck

To strip the old gel coat from the desk was easier than from the cabin but eventhought a very much time consuming task. The process it was the follow: in the flat superficies I used a scraper and a hop air gun, it works quite well. In the rought areas I was forced again to use the grinder.

May to September, 2009: Striping all the old Paint from the Cabin

This was a reallty dirty task, to Strip all the old Paint from the Cabin. It consumed me long and hard time.

It wasn't really 4 months working but just 2 months, just 4 hours per weekend, ie. around 32 hours. In the mean time during the beach holidays, I had the inspiring experience of reading the book VERY WILLING GRIFFIN by David Blagden. This book describes day by day the experiency of crossing the atlantic in a 19 feet  Hunter19 boat, in the 1972 Transat race.
The old paint was really in bad shape and look, breaking a lot, so I decided to remove it all.

First I tried with a quimical but didn't work well, then I tried an orbital sander but also didn't work well since the old paint was a very hard gel coat and finally I used a grinder. GRP start to appear !

  If you plan todo this kind of task with a grind (or not) I strongly advice you to use a professional plastic mask , It makes the difference.