The Blandford Rebuild

Thursday, 1 March 2012

The Blandford Rebuild - Photo update (rigged)

The Blandford Rebuild - Finished at last!

So the last coat of paint has dried on the hull, I've re-attached all the fittings we took off before painting and varnishing and we've flipped the boat back over and onto the trailer. Finally all done!

A quick side note on the trailer : as I mentioned way back in my first post, the boat originally came with a trailer but it was so rusted that I had to hire another trailer to get the whole lot home. The original plan was to try repair the rusted one as it's a very clever design with a built in dolly. Unfortunately, after getting a few cost estimates the trailer just wasn't worth repairing. I landed up finding another trailer online which, although not built specifically for the boat, fits the dinghy like a glove.

Below some photos before we flipped the dinghy, note the nice contrast between the center piece which was stripped back to bare wood and the freshly painted hull.

Planning on having her "maiden voyage" this weekend so I'm going to practice rigging her tonight on the lawn tonight so as not to have any nasty surprises when I arrive at the dam on Saturday morning.

Boat on new trailer I bought

I'll make sure to post some more photos after this weekend's launch :)

Sunday, 26 February 2012

The Blandford Rebuild - Painting the Hull

After flipping the boat upside down and balancing it (rather precariously I might add) on two padded trestles, we got a chance to thoroughly inspect the underside of the dinghy.

Boat flipped over before any real work had begun

From what we can tell the majority of the joins look watertight. The only part that looks slightly worrying is the centre piece that runs the length of the underside of the dinghy, specifically where this piece begins to curve up the bow.

As you can see from the photo, this centre piece is made of small strips of wood that progressively decrease in size and width. Towards the front of the dinghy, where the bow starts to curve upwards, there are a few of the pieces that have started to come loose and pull away from the hull.

As we’re planning on painting the hull white to match the inside of the boat, we only needed to give it light sand. The centre piece however was stripped down to bare wood to allow for better absorption of the epoxy we have used to seal this piece off. I’m also planning on leaving this piece unpainted.

Centre piece and side joins coated in the expoxy

After the epoxy had set, we gave everything a light sand again and laid down a coat of primer. This is drying overnight so we can start with painting the hull tomorrow evening. Should only take two coats of paint to complete the hull. Almost done!

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Monday, 20 February 2012

The Blandford Rebuild - photo update

Sanding, priming, painting and varnishing in chronological order

Thursday, 16 February 2012

The Blandford Rebuild - Home Stretch

Looks like we’re nearing the home stretch!

The last of the varnishing was completed this week, all told we landed up applying 5 coats of Woodoc 50 and the finished result looks great. The woodwork is shining like a new penny and the white floorboards contrast nicely with wooden crossbeams.

The last bit of work, which I completed last night, was to seal the joints with marine grade silicone. Besides obviously stopping any potential leaks, this also has the added benefit of smoothing out the edges where the white paint of the floorboards stop and the varnish of the woodwork begins.

Liberal amounts of sealant was used for the aft hatch which I’ve noted in my previous post had a slight leak.

So now that that’s done, time to flip the boat over and start on the hull.

Monday, 6 February 2012

The Blandford Rebuild - Floorboards Painted

Saturday was a pretty productive day.

As mentioned in my previous post, we decided to paint the floorboards white. So on Saturday, with all the sanding and prep work now completed, I started with the arduous task of taping up all the woodwork that wasn’t to be painted white to protect it from any wayward paintbrushes. Once that was done, we laid down a quick layer of primer on the floorboards to ensure that the white paint would adhere properly to the wooden surface.

Primer on the floorboards - no varnish on woodwork

While waiting for the primer to dry, we started on the first layer of varnish for the remainder of the woodwork. I landed up selecting Woodoc 50 – a varnish specifically designed for marine application with a high UVA & UVB filter built in. By the time we had finished the first layer of varnish, the primer had dried and we painted the first coat of white paint on the floorboards.

Primer on the floorboards - 1st coat of varnish on woodwork

Close up of floorboards with primer

The final coat of white paint was applied late Saturday afternoon, so the floorboards are officially done. Sunday afternoon saw a second coat of varnish go on the rest of the woodwork and I now have to wait for that to dry properly before we give the wood a light sanding with some waterpaper and applying the third coat. We might have to go for four coats, but I’ll see how it looks after the third coat has dried.

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

The Blandford Rebuild - Sanding Completed

Finally! All the sanding is done!

After all the woodfiller had dried, I managed to finish the second bout of fine sanding with 80grit yesterday evening. It went MUCH faster than the first run.

Some photos:

Nice little before and after side-by-side shot

Varnishing to commence shortly, after which we'll get to the messy part of re-sealing all the joints with silicone.