Finishing Off

   Did a few hours of painting last night, basically rolled a coat of grey marine primer over the whole hull in about 30 mins, then started priming the cotton in the seams.  Quickly realised that at 10 mins per seam x 26 seams this would take some time, so finished off this morning with some cut-down paint brushes courtesy of Herbert.  We won't putty the seams at this stage, as the boat is going into hibernation.  This means that the putty would dry out and when the boat was finally launched and the planks swelled it would simply crack.  So puttying will be done nearer the finish line.

   The final job was to tidy up the keel repairs and fit a keel "shoe", a sacrificial strip of hardwood to protect the keel from grounding, beaching, and trailer wear.  I had donated some Jarrah beams to Herbert a while back so we were able to take a slice off one of these - an extremely hard wood and ideal for this purpose.  After dry fitting it with stainless screws we trimmed it to width with a router (which caused problems) and eventually and plane and sander.  Then we red leaded the keel and end grains of the Jarrah and fitted it with silicone-bronze fasteners.

Trimming keel shoe with a router - big mistake!

Leading end of keel replaced and faired in.

Finished keel shoe.

Jado set up in Herbert's workshop

 







Roll over was fairly straightforward with a chain block, and back onto the trailer at last.  I know it's only primer, but great to see her in a uniform colour, rather than the scabby, stained paintwork, and latterly the almost bare timber look.  First "proper" paint job since the late nineties, I think.