More pictures

Painting finally finished

Well after several years I finally decided to get this thing done. Here are some pictures of the end results of alot of sanding and painting. The paint I used was Rustoleum Marine. The deck and boot stripe are Oyster White, the hull is Deep Green and below the waterline is Old Salem Copper Bronze. Deck got 2 coats rolled and tipped, 2 coats sprayed. I used a Kawasaki detail HVLP

gun for the deck and thinned the paint 25% with mineral spirits. The hull got 3 coats with a Harbor Freight HVLP gun, thinned the same. Deck and hull were wet sanded between coats with 400 wet/dry paper. Boot stripe got 3 coats also. Below the waterline got 2 coats of the Old Salem. I really tried the roll and tip method but didn't care for it. I think that spraying was easier. Check her out. Here name will be "Take Another Road".

July 2010

Well I finally got the epoxy fairing compound applied and sanded back down. I really learned alot during this process. You need to put it on in very light coats, this makes sanding it off a whole lot easier. For those of you lookig for a food deal on Epoxy and fairing compound. Check out U.S. Composites they were about half of what West Systems would have cost.
Today is 7/17/10 and I finally got a coat of Pettit 6149 High build primer on the entire hull above the waterline. It certainly looks 100% better, it is actually beginning to look very sharp.

Whew-lots of sanding

After much sanding this is what I have to work with. I have done lots of research on the net to get advice on how to fix the extreme cracking on the hull and deck. I am leaning toward coating everything with epoxy mixed with colidial silica. I have been told that it will be difficult to sand, but I need the silica for strength. I sure wish I could just use microballons, but the folks have told me that it would not provide the strength needed. To see more pictures go to
http://s566.photobucket.com/albums/ss101/jhoward60/

Let the work begin

Before the work

I have been wanting a small sailboat for years. I watched and watched Craigslist for about 2 years. Then I saw what looked like the boat I was looking for. It was a 1963 Silhouette built in the U.K. by Hurley. The seller was asking $500 for her.
I called him and asked him if he would consider any trades. He said he was open to the idea. I ended up trading him a 1984 O'Brien windsurfer for the boat.
I arranged to go pick it up on Jan 2. He had told me that tires on the trailer were not roadworthy so I made arrangements to tow the boat to my wife's brothers house about 3 miles from his house. The trailer not being roadworthy was an understatement. We hooked up the trailer to my truck and started to drive to the nearest gas station to put some air in the half flat tires. It was about 2 miles away. We got to the gas station and pulled in next to the air hose and proceeding to put air in the tires. I then noticed that the drivers side wheel was leaning outward at about 25 degrees. I jacked up the trailer and pulled on the wheel and it come right off the spindle. There were no bearings left in the hub. We managed to push the boat to the back of the lot and headed home. I had to borrow a friends car hauling trailer to get her home.