Back on the Morgan Giles 30

 Having had a week away doing my own boat in the North West of England, it was time to come back to continue on with the preparations for repainting the hull, having before I went away, I, DAed sanded the main part of the Hull to key up the surface of the hull to apply the hi-build epoxy primer too. It was time to sort out the waterline area and the toe rail region. The waterline was a straightforward job. However, the toe rail area was a different job. 

Because of the construction  of the deck to hull was a lip joint, that is to say that the hull as a lip that run the whole length of the hull and is 3 inches wide so that the deck/cabin moulding sits on the lip and is bolted through the flange with M10 bolts and nyloc nuts and large penny washers after it is bedded down on a sealant compound to make it watertight. It then had an aluminium toe rail itself bolted through the deck joint for good measure. 

This then left a gap between the toe rail and the hull which needs to be cleaned out so that when the epoxy primer is applied to the hull under the toe rail it will adhere to the hull and not be contaminated with any remaining sealant in the gap between the toe rail and the hull. 

So this is the job I am undertaking at the moment a bit of a slow however necessary job to ensure the paint adheres to the hull.

Once I have finished that job it will be on to the decks to apply thickened epoxy to the deck where there are areas of damage gelcoat which has already had a first coat of hi-build epoxy primer applied too, So that once the thickened epoxy as cured the whole deck can be recoated with the second coat of Hi-build epoxy primer and any small areas can be filled and fair until we have smooth and fair deck once more. 

So tomorrow it is back to the toe rail to hull joint and continue to clean out the gap until I have done the whole of the joint.  

The port side of the hull is now sanded as well, just the transom to do when the boat is pulled forward off the side of the workshop

A happy man now that the first sanding down is finished and the edges can be sanded by hand both top and bottom edges

Now the long hand sanding starts with sanding down the areas that you can not do by machine 

There is going to be a fair amount of filling and fairing to be done on both sides 

 

The continuing sanding of the Morgan Giles 30 to get it ready for epoxy hi-build priming

The starboard side now had its first good sanding

The midships area is going to need a fair bit of fairing to get rid of the areas where the bolts for the chain plates have pulled the hull in a bit

The boat is going to have to be moved forward and sideways to get down the port side 

The port side before it gets its good hard sanding back to get a key for the Hi-Build epoxy primer to get a good bonding to the surface.

 

This coming week a lot more sanding and fairing on the Morgan Giles 30

This is the first stages of sanding down the hull of this Morgan Giles 30 a hard sanding to get rid of the old paint on the hull. It is a long a mind deadening job sanding the surface of a boat. However, once you get back to a surface that is good then the hours sent sanding it down just drift away and you start to look at the areas that need filling and fairing down and the hours of long boarding to come before you are ready to apply any meaningful paint back on the hull to get it to look like a new boat once more.

The other job to do over the coming weeks is the filling and fairing the decks of the boat which over the years as had its fair share of bangs and bruises and the deck is in a bit of a worse for wear condition. So the first job was to epoxy primer the whole deck and leave it to cure for a couple of days and the towel on epoxy filler over the decks in the low spots and dents and then get to work with the sanders to fair the deck back to a reasonably smooth and fair deck once more.

The cockpit was one area that was damaged in a number of areas on any corner that could be hit and the gelcoat split or crisped

The side and upper deck were not as bad as the foredeck or the cockpit, however there are areas which need attention where there were stress holding in the past 

So from now on only over shoes to be used on deck and no outdoor shoes aloud.

 

The aft deck and bulkhead now dry fitted ready for the next stage

The aft deck now fitted and just got to sort out the edge of the deck for fitting the gunwale capping back in place

Just got to get the bulkhead hole cut for the area to be used as a warp and fender locker when the boat is finished 

Masking up the areas where it will be glassed in position 

The area in the aft end is getting smaller by the day.

 

Engine finally in and bolted down and the locker at each are taking shape

The foredeck area is now taking shape and the bulkhead has its first coat of thinned varnish to protect from getting dirty 

The inspection hatch is also fitted so that the fuel tank pipework can be done with the fuel tank in position 

The engine is finally bolted down and the work around the engine can be started

The aft bulkhead s now ready to be made and then the aft deck can be fixed down in position