Work has begun, again...

Today I dressed for fiberglass.
After practicing guitar and fetching drinking water for the house, I stopped at one of the many convenience stores and bought a bag of ice and a couple cans of Arizona Ice Tea (Green Tea with honey), a bottle of acetone and headed for the FLASH.

Regardless of what plan emerges between me and my friend Mike, the hull/deck joint will become pivotal in the construction. When I tore off the old cabin and decking,  "Pastries and Heavy Lifting", the bare hull joint was exposed. The previous owner had used thick applications of polysulfide to seal the two (deck and hull) and it has to be removed before I can make my own mess of things. That's the picture on the left.

I found that a heat gun helps a little to soften it up, but only special chemicals not available (and costly if they were) in Mexico. The acetone didn't work. It has to be a "mechanical" removal. I tried using an air chisel with a broad, sharp edge and it cleaned off this stuff pretty well if I leaned into the job. I didn't even power up the chisel, just started scraping with it.

After scraping off the cured goo, I finished the cleaning job with a Makita grinder with a coarse wire brush. It kicks up a little fiberglass dust but it's manageable. In 2 hours I got about 40% of the joint cleaned off.

The design has me extending the sheer (the side of the boat) up, and this is the area that supports much of the new structure. It has to be cleaned up to provide a strong bond. It will have to reinforced here and there with marine plywood to support stanchions (posts for lifelines) and sail handling attachments.

The red line on the drawing above shows the hull/deck joint and the stuff above it is what I have to build.