Rita Splashed, (finally!)

[Lew Barrett]

A long and hard working haulout with a little something for everyone;
Something for the shipwrights (4 planks, damn!)
Something for Fisheries Supply (paint, cotton, seam compounds, epoxy)
Something for me: a fresh boat with a clean bill of health.

She's taking up and getting hard now, as we were out for 2 weeks in mostly warm weather there was a bit of water when she was splashed. I am not used to her taking on water lately but she did this time. The marginal 2 strap Travel lift was not a help, but she's a tough enough girl.

I'm happy with this paint job, I must say, but it just about whooped me. I've been going for 5 weeks straight on this and it feels good to be moving along. Apologies for using a couple of the photos previously; this is the "we're splashed" thread so I hope I am forgiven for that. There are a lot more photos but I have to save some for later use.

Time to go boating!



A lot of prep and sanding resulted in a spotted boat; desert camo



Paint going on (there is a pleasant image in the reflections for the keen eyed)


So much for trying to be neat! Thanks for the ladle tip Jay!


Out of there finally!


They always look bigger out of the water

[Lew Barrett]

Going home!

Yea, it's all over until I start again!

[Garret]

Hot damn!

She's looking beeyootiful, Lew. Happy voyages -

Garret

PS: Multiply your planks x 10 to get to what I have to do...... These old gals ain't cheap or easy, but they sure are worth it when they splash.

[Lew Barrett]

I hate it when the old wood goes thud. You have my complete sympathy Garret. I have to remind myself what I always tell others; it's a process.

[Wooden Boat Fittings]

Well, I was about to say, "Let me be the first to congratulate you" Lew, but I see Garret has beaten me to it. So let me be the second.

She sure looks great (especially those cabin hooks....)

Mike

[C. Ross]

Very nice! She looks really pretty. So does Rita.

[Paul Pless]

You do great by her Lew!

[David G]

Simply Maaaaahhhvellllus, Daaaahhhhling!

[Canoez]

Congrats, Lew! Rita is looking fresh and pretty again - you guys really do take great care of that boat.

[Lew Barrett]

Very nice! She looks really pretty. So does Rita.

And here is a photo of the same lovely young lady sans nez!

[JPhoenix]

Just in time - gonna be a gorgeous weekend - again!

Very nice Lew!!!

[Ed Harrow]

Nice work - now all I need to do is get out to Seattle again... (Do I know her? Hard to tell in the reflection)

[chuckt]

Lew, I am poking around your threads for the details on your recipe for that finish. Haven't found it yet. Care to help me out?

[StevenBauer]

Beauty, Lew. I hope to have some similar pictures in a few days.



Steven

[L.W. Baxter]

You do great by her Lew!

Man alive, no kidding!

[chas]

There was some talk about headin' north. I'm waiting to hear about that. Thea Foss seems to be hanging around here lately; perhaps some other Seattle boats are heading this way? / Jim

[perldog007]

Congratulations, she's lovely, boat's not bad either.

[Jay Greer]

Awsome Lew!
Jay

[wizbang 13]

Big Job, feels smaller in the past ,no?

[54 Conqueror]

Lew, she looks fantastic!!

I was going to try and get over to see her in progress, but my "little project" turned out a little larger than expected and I am still knee deep in it. (surprise).

Absolutely beautiful!!

[Soundman67]

Any more pics you care to share of that lovely boat and your work on her this year would be greatly appreciated. Beautiful lines. I cant even imagine what it takes to keep that hull faired out that nice.

[John B]

Great to see as usual Lew, beautiful.
We hauled on tuesday after 4 days away... the job list was small, new cutlass in the shaft log and evaluate the antifoul.... Its expanded.

[P.L.Lenihan]

Fantastic good job there Lew!! I'm loving your hull colour even more than before.Amazing how that colour changes ever so in different lighting.

Oh,before I forget, reflections can be such a tease! Will we be graced with a photo or two,sans reflection effect?

Cheers!


Peter,stuck humming the Beatles Lovely Rita over-n-over now...............

[Tom Freeman]

When you asked if I wanted to help paint, you should have told me more about the rest of the crew.

Lovely work.

[Lew Barrett]

Thank you all so much; I am flattered and pleased. This was a very extensive prep job with some experimental (for me) stuff that all seems mostly to have worked out.

I will write a bit tomorrow about the ups and downs and there were both. The boat took 4 bottom planks (all 75 year old wood) and a topsides plank (which is a particular drag when you are focused on paint as I will discuss), and that was distracting....and annoying and disappointing! So there's a story there and also a story behind the chemistry of the job, but it's very late so later for that! All of this gets covered in my column next month but I am more than just a little happy to share it with you guys in a different form. It is a kick to have each and every one of you, all worthy crafts person and sailors, enjoy my work as much as I am wowed by yours.

An aside and then to bed:

Aulikki (Spindrift) and her husband Dave are as many of you know, on their way to Bellingham tomorrow. Spin emailed me (from the road?) and I was able to convince her to turn around and drive an hour back down I-5 (in rush hour!) to stay here. So we all spent the night eating, drinking and talking (mostly me). I showed them everything we own, and then we spent an hour looking at the Art of The Motorcycle book together. That was so great! Tomorrow we will go to Fisheries Supply and see Rita, then they leave to meet up with Orca where they splash her and head north.. It has been great to meet them and host them as they embark on this big dream voyage! This forum is so amazing for it's "connectedness."

Yah, there are more pictures! Taking a lesson from the great master of drama (P.I. L...Peter that's you!) I'll string this thread out for all that can be achieved by a paint job

[P.L.Lenihan]

Yah, there are more pictures! Taking a lesson from the great master of drama (P.I. L...Peter that's you!) I'll string this thread out for all that can be achieved by a paint job

Yer a wicked one,ya is Mr.Barrett, but we loves ya jest the same!!


Cheers!


Peter

[redbopeep]

Awsome, lovely boat

[snow(Alan H)]

Lew

WoW - that is some finish. The people who thought about buying her but lacked vision will be kicking themselves when they see her now. She truly is spectacular - hows 'Meter Maid'? you will have to share the love around.

What did you use on the brightwork? - I have just finished doing the teak trim & Oregon mast on RainDance with the new Kiwi wonder product 'Uroxsys'. I have my fingers crossed it will give me 4>5 years. Most of the classic yachts that have been restored down under in the last 4 years have used (trialed) Uroxsys on their mast/spars & are raving about the performance.

http://www.uroxsys.co.nz/marine.htm

We are having an 'indian winter down here - stunning weather - supported by the fact that I'm sanding & bright finishing exterior trim in the middle of winter.

Again well done on Rita - you must be sleeping happy tonight.

Alan (snow)

8.30 a.m. photos from the iPhone

;

[JimD]

Thanks for the update, Lew. I had never seen pics of Rita out of the water before and did not realize she has twin screws. I'll try to pay more attention next time.

[dhic001]

Excellent stuff, well done that man, superb looking job. Trouble is you'll be scared to use it now! Wish I was that close to being afloat again, but I'm about as far away as I'm going to be.
Daniel

[MiddleAgesMan]

Very nice job, Lew, on a very very nice boat. I seem to recall her topsides have always been white but that looks to be a more creamy color....?

[ron ll]

Beautiful work Lew. I bet you are both happy and exhausted. Hope to see you on the water soon. (I guess I accidentally poofed my earlier post, not sure how.) I understand the frustration with a new topsides plank and a paintjob of that quality. That new plank will probably take a year to settle down.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Ah yes, I feel your pain before those pics.... I am still in the midst of a complete topside paint and varnish ... pulled all the hardware... I am on coat 6 of varnish.

Great Job, as usual... I will look forward to the rest of the pictures.

[paladin]

Nice...Lew....

[davidagage]

Just gorgeous Lew...

[Lew Barrett]

A word about "why:"

The underlying why of this job was to develop a strategy for avoiding problems borne of iron fasteners that were starting to poke through on the topsides.

Everyone with a boat fastened this way has wished for a cure to bleeders and proud plugs at one time or another. So that's what the following is about, the few easy techniques that have been developed by friends and
other keepers that I stole for this job.

First is the hole cleaning tool. I have spoken about this tool before, but a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are two pictures that illustrate how to clean an existing fastener head in about 4 seconds.


"Hole cleaning tool" illustrated (trick courtesy Chuck Roose via Andy Blair)


Tool in use

It couldn't be simpler. Using this dumb system, the rust or oxidation is immediately removed from the fastener head. This may be followed by a swab of osphoric acid. When dried, a swab of cpes is overlaid on the top of the fastener as well. Or you can use some paint, varnish, shellac or (as we did) Blue Seal. Or a combination of these sealers. Then a plug is inserted and fixed in your preferred fashion. At that point you migt have something that looks like this:


Pt bow of Rita with plugs waiting to be flushed. I didn't keep count. Maybe I did 500 tiny individual repairs of this sort. It was tedious. The smearing along the hull is where I wiped off excess CPES and "Blue Seal" while it was still wet as I didn't want that stuff getting in the way of later sanding efforts.



After the plugs were cut flush (using another Jay Greer trick; the flush cutting saw) any chipping is very carefully filled with fairing epoxy. We used Restore-it, Interlux and Silver Tip somewhat interchangeably. I have a small preference for the Interlux product as a result of my experiences here, but they are all more alike than they are different.

Ready for paint, treated plugs look like this. You work on them until you can feel absolutely no difference between the boat and the plug. These have been hit with spray primer as well, hence they look a bit "cloudy." As it happens, that was unnecessary as the painters applied a complete split coat when I pulled the "let's paint" trigger.



Here are my two volunteer helpers:

Andy Blair, my great friend who helps paint my boat and shows up selflessly at all haul outs and for whom I will always do the same.


Johnny Robbins my (very informally) "adopted son" who works alongside me when he has time.

Both of the above guys took on all the lousy jobs that need doing: sanding, bottom paint, seam paying, crawling along on your belly, whatever might be needed as we went along. Kudos and extreme gratitude to them; I would still be out if it was just me doing this.
And to suggest that they only did grunt work is very short shrift. Andy owns and maintains Glayva, a 1938 39 foot cruiser, and deserved winner of many accolades, and Johnny is a skilled carpenter and painter himself.

[chuckt]

I am reading into your posts a promise to decribe how you acheived your masterpeice . Don't be like my mum who won't give my wife her best recipes.

[chuckt]

LOL! You started the story apparently at the same time I was typing the above message--but don't stop there!

[Lew Barrett]

Everything was cruising nicely along until I discovered a problem.




The purpose of this exercise was to avoid this sort of thing in the future, but you have to fix what you find. It's pretty clear to anybody who cared to look that there was a problem here.
Fortunately it didn't invade the neighboring butt but John Thomas cut it back a bay just to be safe.

We hoped that was the end of the trouble, but if you look in the red, you might see something ominous just in line with John's head; surveyor's chalk marks. I no longer do planking, so this represented a setback in every way; of the paint job, and to the wallet.

More to come.

[Soundman67]

so to cure the weeping iron fasteners you clean then seal then plug? Do you use varnish to set the plugs? I am not familiar with blue seal. going to have to google it now. My boat uses boat nails to fasten and a lot of the plugs are weaping rust. I was considering replacing those ones with bronze screws. I am pretty sure that is what has been used on all the replanking that has been done. I am concerned about getting the original fasteners out without damage though.

[jboats]

Beautiful job on a beautiful boat - thanks for sharing the story Lew.

[Soundman67]

Just saw the start of the planking. Looks like a bit more than a little surprise. Cant wait for more.

[peter radclyffe]

miss awlgrip 2010 eh, thanks Lew

[Tom Freeman]

Maybe when Lew gets to the end of his story, I'll post the full bikini shot of his assistant painter from Bell Street last year. That should drive the views up on the thread!

[snow(Alan H)]

Maybe when Lew gets to the end of his story, I'll post the full bikini shot of his assistant painter from Bell Street last year. That should drive the views up on the thread!

And maybe speed up the posting - he is serializing this story i.e. a little bit each day

[Lew Barrett]

so to cure the weeping iron fasteners you clean then seal then plug? Do you use varnish to set the plugs? I am not familiar with blue seal. going to have to google it now. My boat uses boat nails to fasten and a lot of the plugs are weaping rust. I was considering replacing those ones with bronze screws. I am pretty sure that is what has been used on all the replanking that has been done. I am concerned about getting the original fasteners out without damage though.

The plugs are set dry (sort of he lied) but the truth is that the blue seal probably has at least some hold on them as it didn't reach full cure before we reset the plugs. Also almost every plug got a fairing epoxy overlay. But I would gladly use paint or varnish on topside plugs presuming they were tight fitting to begin with. That was not always the case for our holes and where a plug was not going back into a perfect hole it got 'glued' in (uncured blue seal) and faired over. What else can you do?


Don't be too concerned about never having heard of Blue Seal; neither had I!


This was given to me by David Wiehle, the painter (more of him anon). He stopped by while I was still in the water and gave me a good amount of this (rather expensive) product with a thumbnail description of how to use it; as follows:

Mix very small amounts; whatever you can use in about 10-15 minutes. A glue brush very carefully loaded is used to put the mix on the head of the fastener, following the cleaning, ospho and CPES treatment. I suppose you could pass on the CPES if you were using this, or this if you are using CPES. I used what is referred to in an old joke as "the two bag" system" on the theory that you can't seal an iron fastener too much; you know...you have a back up if one of the bags breaks!

I would not want the job of removing boat nails from the topsides while trying not to damage the planking. If I were a betting man I would bet on the side of the guys who say "it can't be done" (in sufficient numbers to make a difference). It is hard enough getting this many plugs out without too much chipping and hole buggering, never mind the nails beneath. In Rita's case, the fasteners are good. Only the oxidation seems to push the plugs out and it doesn't take much to dislodge a plug. If you can stop that from happening, I think you can buy a lot of time.

Will the Blue Seal be the answer? We shall find out.

[Lew Barrett]

Serial posting yeah Alan.

I am still busy with the remains of this job and a mini refit including new batteries and some window trim work. Cosmetics are done for this year though. Lindy and I are heading to a surprise party in California (I think I can say this online; she doesn't follow WBF to my knowledge!) for my oldest daughter and I want the boat to be ready to go within a few days of when we get home.

Tom; do the Liz photos. I don't have too many more and we probably won't see her in a bikini again anytime soon as (I'm sorry to report) they took a melanoma from her a few weeks ago so she won't be sunning the way she used to.

She humored me by painting in shorts and halter but that's Liz for ya.

Chuck, I will be happy to discuss the mix of tricks here as this thing unwinds. There's nothing new, just the mix we used.

[Ross M]

Rita is so beautiful her maintenance should be considered public service.

And here is a third for Liz photos <G>

[Lew Barrett]

Chuck; there is nothing terribly special about the paint. It is Easypoxy Grand Banks Beige on top, and Interlux Brightsides Dark Blue for the boot.

Some Penetrol (about 10% but really to feel) is the brushing extender. That's it. The paint was hardly thinned, just a literal splash of T120 (maybe not even that) and no 333 on the boot. Both of those are the recommended system thinners for their respective paints. But I took no say in the mix for the topsides, anymore than I would tell John Thomas how to spile a plank.
One certainly has every right to ask questions and suggest methods of work, but frankly these people work at the very top of their trades. I am more interested in learning from them than they should be in listening to me!

So for the first time Rita got painted with Penetrol; something I had been curious about but very reluctant to try for years.
Well, blow me down. It works great. Everything, including the boot, was rolled and tipped. I used my 3" Purdy and small Tiz rollers, and David used 7" Tiz and a 3" Corona.

David "structures" the paint. Liz rolls it on evenly and they yak at each other the whole time; very entertaining. Liz's language is extremely colorful and Dave dishes it right back. The talking never stops and all the arms are also constantly in motion.
David first brushes the paint out horizontally, paying extra attention to what is happening at the top under the rails; giving them an extra sweep every time. The he pulls the paint down vertically. This is exactly what I was taught to do, minus the horizontal structuring (what Rebecca Whitman might call "working in plaid").

I don't think there is any way you could get the wet edge time this takes without the Penetrol. That's one key. The stuff levels like crazy.

As for the difference between Brightsides and Easypoxy: Brightsides definitely flows better, no doubt in my mind now. However, as it seems more translucent, it also seems not to cover as well. If coverage is important, I'd say the Easypoxy is better. If flow and gloss are what you need, the Brightsides seems a bit better in those categories. Both are excellent products, and as I like a good gloss but don't fancy two packs, I think either of these is a good paint in the modern idiom of a shiny paint job. You have to want a gloss finish or these are the wrong products.

As one of the forum traditionalists, it is something of a surprise for me to find myself agog over Penetrol. But the results speak for themselves.

[Tom Freeman]

Ask and you shall receive. Here is my vote for the "People's Choice" award from last years Bell Street Classic weekend.