The napping place or the bowsprit platform

The napping place.....we'll get to that later.
The bowsprit has been on for a few weeks but the platform was still being worked on. Meaning I had to finish putting on 3 coats of cetol light then two coats of cetol clear. It seemed to take forever. I could only do one side at a time, the top or the bottom. I guess I could have hung the platform like I hung the bowsprit when I painted it. For whatever reason I didn't so it took a loooong time finish. This is my first attempt with cetol so lets say there are a few oops in it. I call it my 10 foot cetol job. If you look at it from 10 feet it looks great! But hey I am planning on sailing this boat so as long as she is protected I'm good. No marina queen here!

Above is the platform resting on the polished bowsprit pulpit. You can see where I am putting butyl tape on the edge that will be against the bowsprit.

Here you can see the butyl tape being squeezed out as I tighted up the nuts on the allthread. I learned that I have to make sure the bolts go through the holes after I complete the finish. It sure makes it easier to install at the boat if I know the bolts will go through.

Oh I like the look of the platform against the white bowsprit! To heck with stainless steel.There is something to be said for the look of wood be it painted or stained.

 

Ok here is the napping place!

 

Bowsprit Complete!

Last weekend, September 8, 2012 I was able to install my bowsprit. Did I take a picture of it installed...well no. Why you ask....because I forgot! I do have pictures of it installed...just not the whole thing. Keep reading and check out the pictures.

All told it has two coats of West Marine penetrating epoxy, two coats of primer Interlux primer  and four coats of Interlux one part polyurethane paint.

 

The picture above is when it was finally ready to be moved to the boat. I still have to do the platform. I will use Cetol light on it with gloss over that. Below is it sitting sideways waiting to be installed. I was doing the install by myself so I tied a halyard to it in case I dropped it over board!

I had bought a used anchor roller with a 4" bronze roller. I mounted that on the starboard side, moving the original roller to the port side. No they don't match, but does that really matter...I don't think so. If you think they should then go buy your own boat! LOL!

I did have to drill another hole in the bowsprit but I did not see that as being an issue. I had to temporarily mount the platforms so I could cut the port side one to allow room for the  port side roller. I used a small hand saw to make the cut through the teak platform being careful not to cut into my newly finished bowsprit.  Yeah...that didn't work so well. I cut a 1/8" deep groove into it. Dang...I hate that!

I filled it with epoxy and painted over it. So now my bowsprit has a blemish. (Like I did a Bristol job on the rest of it...yeah right.) Any way...I hauled it down to the boat and started to check that all the bolts would go in the holes, everything lines up etc. Now I had done this at the house, but one more check won't hurt. Things were a bit tighter than at the house and i did have to run a drill by hand through one of the bolt holes due to the build up of paint and epoxy. But it was no big deal and it was easy.

I ran the 3 bronze bolts through the bowsprit so I could mount the tapered piece to the bowsprit before I mounted it. I used a butyl tape that we use at work to seal the taper to the bowsprit and between the taper piece and the deck. (What the heck is the name for the "tapered piece"?) I used the butyl tape as I know for a fact that stuff sticks, is waterproof and lasts for decades in the sun. It is used for sealing flanged duct joints. You can see in the pictures below that the tape oozes out and can be cut or peeled off. Look at the forward most bolt in the top picture you can see what it looked like before I peeled it off. (The life caulk you see was used in the opening at the very peak where the sailsail bracket meets the teak.)

I did not mount the samson posts as I did not have the chainlocker bulkhead complete. That will be the next post. See you then!

SL-555 Windlass and bowsprit update

While looking cruising through the craigslist I found a Simpson Lawrence windlass model 555 for sale. The owner wanted a bit to much for it but I called to see if he would be at his shop so I could go and look at it. I arrived at his shop to see that he has a ton of marine equipment there. This guys buys boats that are damaged, or cheap or from people who just want to get rid of them. He then parts them out for what seems to be decent prices. Anyway the windlass was not beat up and worked as smooth as it ever would. But the gypsy (the part that winds the chain on or off the boat) would not freewheel. But this is a fairly common problem with ones that don't get used much, as this one appears to be. I offered what I thought would be a decent price and he accepted. So I am the proud owner of a new to me windlass, the exact model I wanted. So now I can figure out how to mount it while my bowsprit is still off. Oh, for what it is worth I was told this windlass came off of Dennis Conner's old wooden boat. (Whatever)

Speaking of the bowsprit. I finished putting a coat of primer on it last night. Tonight I hope to get a coat of paint on it and the Samson posts.

So what is the name of the tapered piece of wood that goes under the bowsprit? I have no clue. But above is a picture of it!

Just a quick sanding then ready for paint!

New Samson posts and bowsprit preview

I received a call that my new samson posts were ready. So I headed over to H&L to pick them up. I was able to get a sneak peek of my bowsprit too!

Yea I know this picture sucks....looks like a couple of 2x4s just laying there. But honest they have all the holes and are shaped just like the old ones on the left.

Here is Russell at H&L working on the bowsprit. You can see he was working on getting the round stainless fitting (what's that called?) to fit. If all goes well I should have the bowsprit in a day or two! When I get it I will do a bare dry fit on the boat to make sure all the holes line up. If they do I will bring it home, coat it with penetrating epoxy and then paint it before doing the final installation.

Better pictures of the samson posts with two coats of penetrating epoxy.

Deck plywood replacement

Sunday July 29 Skip came over to help me. Seems he is having withdrawals from being away from his boat. (W32 Hull #143 Delta Belle) That means I have an extra set of hands to help me! It was nice to have another Westsail 32 owner here on my boat so we could compare notes. So after a bit of talking we got to work. Skip worked on digging out the rest of the rot that was in the openings were the samson posts go. The port side opening was the worst one with the other side being pretty solid. Mind you Skip was digging this rotten wood out  with a small pick as that was all we had that would fit in the opening.

Dig, Dig, Dig!

Here is what the holes looked like after Skip was done.

While Skip was doing that I was hand sanding on the teak cap rail near the boomkin trying to get it ready for some cetol.  It didn't help that not 30 seconds into hand sanding with a sanding block I dropped it into the drink! So I was just sanding with paper for awhile then switched to the orbital sander. I wrapped the cord around me so if I dropped that it would not end up in Neptune's chest!

I can't thank Skip enough for the help plus I made a new friend! Skip is always welcome here.

Saturday 8-4-12 I went to the boat with the goal of epoxying in some new plywood where Skip dug out. My plan was to fit as big a piece of plywood that I could into the deck. The area I had to replace was small maybe 4 locations that were 5" across and 5" long at the largest. I found that I could not get a big piece in. So like Bud Taplin (Westsail Guru) told me I used small pieces. I ended up making up some epoxy that was as thick as peanut butter and stuffing it into the opening against the good wood then "butter" up a small block and push it end. I feel confident that I was able to fill all the voids with wood and or epoxy.  The result is shown below.

Bowsprit being built by H&L

After much research on building the bowsprit myself or having it built I went with having it built. I had a couple of places give me bids. The best price for a complete bowsprit built out of a single piece of clear Douglas fir was H&L Marine in Rancho Dominguez, Ca. Yesterday I brought them my bowsprit to reproduce. The estimated time to have it built is 10-20 days. This will give me time to get the bow, chain locker and deck core ready for the new bowsprit.

Here is Cesar. He is very helpful and knowledgeable.

I must say I was impressed with H&L Marine. Their shop is HUGH! They have a ton of wood in many species and can do any custom work that you need done besides the stuff they crank out every day.  They have an area where they sell the seconds, which looked pretty good to me. I might be shopping here a bit!

I got there right at closing so I didn't get the full tour but Deena did as I was taking care of the paperwork. She saw lots of impressive woodworking.





Look at all the tillers on the wall to the left. There are more that you can't see in the picture!

Here is about 1/3 of the shop area. You can see the laminating presses on the right.

Sanding the teak bowsprit platform

I can't say that I have done much work with teak....ok I haven't done any work with teak before. So as I sand on the bowsprit platform I wonder how much do I need to sand. By this I mean between the slats. It has the silver weathering on it, it won't be seen much, so do I need to sand it?  I will be coating the wood with Cetol so do I need every bit sanded? I posted the question on the Westsail Owners Association website. But if you know the answer or have a comment let me know. Below are a few pictures of some of the sanding I did last night. I was told teak is an oilie wood, but wow it is more than I thought! I can feel it on my hands when I dust off the sanding dust. It sure does sand out to a beautiful finish. I can't wait to put some finish on it to see how it looks.

 Do I have to  sand between the slats? Can I leave them weathered?
Look at the difference between the sanded platform and the weathered platform. A big difference!

To the left is a shot of the stainless steel all thread rod that goes through the platform. You can see I cleaned up the lower shorter piece. I used a stainless steel brush on it. I ended up chucking the rod in my drill press and just held the brush up to it as the rod spun around. It worked nice! I also chased the threads for the first few inches on each end just in case.