[dnme]

Good weather is back, at least for a couple of days. I spent the day sanding, grinding, scraping etc. I am now wire brushing the deck interior and the seating. I am taking out old paint by the bucket load.

As I sweep up and star to get the boat clean, I'm a little worried about what I uncover. Today I noticed the side keel supports and some delaminating around them. I guess I will treat this as any grp repair. I will have to grind out the loose material and lay up new cloth and epoxy.

[dnme]

I guess all work and no play makes jack a tosser so I was more than happy to take the morning out to go and join Slig and co on their Shetland 570 for a spin up and down the Shannon. Thanks so much Slig, that's a beautiful boat you have there. I photographed every bolt on it and got some nice good information and advice which I hope to apply to my wreck. And boy what a beautiful morning to be messing about on the river.

I went to Ballina in the afternoon to see if I could get my windows sorted after I had located a plastic fabricator there. He took a look at the existing salvaged windows and then gave me some prices. YIKES!!!! It was prohibitively expensive so I got in my car and drove home still none the wiser as to how I will solve the problem of window replacement.

My next plan, is to rey and make molds of the existing front windows using tape in card and resin. From there I may be able to fashion a ply rest mold. Then I might have a go at making an oven using a homemade wooden box lined with foil and a 2 bar electric heater. This paragraph is how my brain is currently seeing this, the reality may follow suit or may not. One thing that I don't want to do is go at perspex with a heat gun and end up with the bodge job that is the existing front windows.

Spent the evening sanding and grinding, grinding and sanding, and sanding and then I did a bot of sanding. I'll post a couple of before/after pics tomorrow maybe. I love fine weather, it's everything.

1. Carla at the helm. I believe Slig's boat is christened after her.


2. It's a beautiful country, especially from the water.


3. Summer breeze

[dnme]

Day 10

More sanding and grinding. I have become a bit addicted to sanding tbh. If anything or anyone stands still for more than about a minute, they get sanded atm in my house.

I am still at the prep stage with the boat, again I am literally shovelling out the old sanded and grinded paint by the bucket load. I reckon so far I have dumped 10-15Kg of old paint.

One thing I wanted to do for a while was remove the old seat behind the helm. It was in a bad state of repair with a large chunk missing. After some investigation as to whether it would affect structure or not, today I finally cut it out, it felt great, plus gave me a great excuse to use my new recip saw - oh god yes!

So not much to report by way of a post on the web but as promised, here are one or two before and after shots.

1. Bought this beauty on Ebay last week, €115 delivered. Plan to use it for decking etc but couldn't wait to use it today. It went through the grp like butter. The dremmel device - I bought in Aldi a while back for 20 quid I think. I't made a great job of tidying the recip saw cut.


2. Bulkhead scrubs up well


3. The remaining seat finally sanded. The top is corregated and a bitch to work on. This seat took about 4 hours to do and I sweat tears and broke my back doing it.


4. The old seat behind the helm, getting rid of it frees up loads of space on deck.

[fergal.b]

Looking great, I think you will get out on the water before the end of the summer at this rate.

[DOTHEDOG]

your doing a wonderful job can't wait until till the finished product

[Donie75]

Do you still have the old perspex windows? If you have you can restore them back to very good condition with a bit of T Cut. Use plenty of T Cut and elbow grease and they'll come up like new.

Good job on the restoration.

[dnme]

Originally Posted by Donie75

Do you still have the old perspex windows? If you have you can restore them back to very good condition with a bit of T Cut. Use plenty of T Cut and elbow grease and they'll come up like new.

Good job on the restoration.

I have some of the old windows, but one of the front ones is missing, and the other one is a badly botched homemade job. Also the windscreen is beyond recovery. The flat side windows are fine, I can make new ones very easily, but the two profiled front ones and the windshield might be tricky. WRT the windshield, not only do I need to form perspex, but I also need to make (or have made) an aluminuim surround. Jesus I don't know where to start.

So the windows are a bit of an issue, and I aint giving no dam fabricator 400 quid for three windows on a boat that cost me 500 quid in the first place. (sometimes I really hate the ripoff republic)

[moonshadow]

In fairness DNME if the difference to having a fantastic restoration and one where you constantly say its great except for the windows..........bite the bullet get them done.You are doing a super job with the cleaning down if you carry on like this you will be up and running in no time.
I check here daily to see your progress and your flying it

[Slig]

Originally Posted by dnme

I have some of the old windows, but one of the front ones is missing, and the other one is a badly botched homemade job. Also the windscreen is beyond recovery. The flat side windows are fine, I can make new ones very easily, but the two profiled front ones and the windshield might be tricky. WRT the windshield, not only do I need to form perspex, but I also need to make (or have made) an aluminuim surround. Jesus I don't know where to start.

So the windows are a bit of an issue, and I aint giving no dam fabricator 400 quid for three windows on a boat that cost me 500 quid in the first place. (sometimes I really hate the ripoff republic)

Great work, when I think of the little bit of sanding to the repaired fibreglass that I had to do it really puts it in perspective. I cant get over the difference in the photos. Keep up the good work.

If you do find someone that can supply you with the aluminium frames for the windscreen PM on their details as I've been planning on re-engineering ours for about 3 years now.

[dnme]

Day 11

A small break in the weather and off comes that tarp. I still have some sanding to do, infact quite a bit of sanding left to do; but I'm also starting to think about the other thousand jobs that need to be done on this boat.

I went to my local builders merchants today and ordered 18mm marine ply, 12mm WBP ply, a sheet of 4mm perspex and a sheet of 4mm cheap ply for test cuts, templates and what have you.
So that lot will allow me to start thinking about the floor, door, hatch and windows. My first batch of Epoxy resin arrived on Tuesday. So this paragraph has cost me around €400

I live close to a Coillte site up on the Curlews. I take the dog walking up there a lot. One thing that sickens me about the otherwise beautiful place is the dumping that goes on up there. It makes me sick to my stomach. The dirty ****ers go up there in the middle of the night and dump their filth. Anyway, last week I was up there and noticed a table top dumped along with beds and mattresses. I decided the table top looked decent and would do me for a work table alongside the boat. So I opened up the car boot and managed just about to get the dam thing in. It's a massive heavy table, I'd say 6x4 and weighs a ton. Thank god for the old Corolla liftback, you'd fit a snooker table into it. As I drove out of the remote area with boot open and table sticking out, I wondered if I had been seen and if so, would the onlookers assume I was a dumper

Anyheeewww, today I decided to get started on the windows. The two front windows are profiled with a complex compound contour and I would like to get them shaped as well as I possibly can. Through much research on perspex, I now know that a heat gun is not the way to go. My plan is to make moulds of the windows, then make an oven, lay a cut of perspex over the mould and allow it to drape mould to shape. Sounds so simple when I just type it like that, the reality is somewhat different.

I started on one mould this afternoon. I cut a piece of old ply oversized in roughly the shape of a window, then cut it along where the main window bend is. I then taped the two pieces back together along that cut thus giving me a cheap hinge on the ply. It was then a case of using masking tape and uprights to position and hold the ply from the inside. I then started the job of filling the outside with more ply cuts and chicken wire. I then started to fill the profile from the outside with Homebase exterior filler (cheapest I could get). So tonight I have one window filled roughly, I will finish it off with a finer fill material and pray that it stays together when it comes time to remove it and place it in a makeshift oven. What could possibly go wrong !!!

I wasn't going to post this at all as I am in uncharted waters here. There are no precedents for what I am doing and I am bound to run into many problems. But I decided that a restoration is about the downs as well as ups so warts and all. If this goes belly up - so be it.

My plan for an oven, is a plywood box lined with foil, I will hang a 2 bar heater over the piece and maybe use a small fan. I have ordered a probe thermometer from ebay which will allow me to control the temp properly. I need to work on the perspex between 120 and 160 degrees c. To give you an idea of perspex when it's hot, think of an easy singles cheese slice and that's precisely what it's like.

1. Table top rescued from a ditch up in the Curlews. I bolted on 4 legs and voila, I have a big heavy work table out by the boat for free.


2. I cut a piece of ply to use as a mould backing.


3. The piece of ply in place. Started filling with other ply offcuts and chicken wire.


4. The first fill using Homebase exterior filler. This comes dry and you mix with water. I threw in a drop of washing up liquid for pliability and smoothness.


5. Back to sanding. I am suffering trying to get years of paint of rough grp. I have tried all sorts of tools and materials. Tonight I tried this fella, bought in Woodies a few days back. It's like a very hard sponge with just a small amount of give. It works great but wears away very quick and they're a tenner a go.

[fergal.b]

Here is a link on thermoforming that might be of help, you can use a heat gun to blow heat into the box and control the heat if it has a temp setting.
http://www.theplasticshop.co.uk/plas...pex_manual.pdf

[dnme]

Originally Posted by fergal.b

Here is a link on thermoforming that might be of help, you can use a heat gun to blow heat into the box and control the heat if it has a temp setting.
http://www.theplasticshop.co.uk/plas...pex_manual.pdf

Yea Fergal I have read that pdf previously, very useful.

[dnme]

Day 12

Good weather all round, it's so nice out that I never want to go inside. I have been working on some woodwork over the past few days and making progress with the windows.

I ordered a few sheets of ply and yesterday, I attempted my version of a hatch. 12mm WBP is not the stuff to make it with though, I learned this after two attempts. It's useless for butt joints. So I will buy one or two lumbered hardwood boards and use those with a dowel jig for any future joinery. My hatch top is profiled so I have cut three pieces of 4mm ply and will laminate these with epoxy. For now I have put the hatch together as a dry fit and it looks and works well so when I apply the above alterations, epoxy and paint it (toplac), it should look and feel great. I will borrow a router and roundover all the corners making it look a bit more professional.

Having a mate who lends you tools helps of course. He's just about dozy and dopey enough to trust me with some good kit. One tool he lent me was a brute of a belt sander. It's a heavy beast and very effective. I have always found belt sanders dodgy for edging as it's tricky to get a true right angle to your edge, so I made up a couple of very quick jigs to hold the sander, one upright and one on it's side. This allows me to present the work material to the sander and move it rather than the other way around.

The hatch ends were cut using a compass jig. A piece of timber with a screw in one end and a hole in the other. Screw it on the work material at one end,place a pencil in the hole and draw your curve (to predetermined measured radius length). Once rough cut with a jig saw, I am then able to present the curve to the belt sander jig and move the material back and fourth forming a perfect curve back to my pencil line.

Now to the window(s). I have been filling and sanding the starboard front window with filler for the past few days. I managed to get the profile pretty smooth and nicely contoured. But to be honest, I had my doubts about creating a mould out of concrete basically....I mean how was I gonna get it out of the boat if I ever got it shaped?.....as I say, uncharted waters, no one has done this before afaik. So today, I decided to have a go at getting the mould out. A final sand, a wetting to check the profile. Then I started to cut round the edge very carefully. This was a tricky stage, a few tiny chips etc, then I remembered my €20 Aldi dremel thingy. Out it came to my rescue once again. It allowed me to precisely cut the mould out of the window. I had it well shored up and supported inside the boat thankfully. Eventually it came away and I gently got hold of it from inside the boat. Bloody hell it weighs a lot. I carried it out and laid it down. It is a success. The mould looks and feels perfect. Now all I have to do is make an oven some how and drape form my perspex over it.

The success of the window mould was a real boost today. I had my doubts about it but it worked so I have now started moulding the other window learning and improving from my first attempt.

Money has run out literally. I sat down last night and logged into online banking. Not a pretty sight. It's a lot worse than I feared having kept my head in the sand for the past month. I guess I can afford to order some glass cloth and continue on with grp repairs and do a bit of woodwork. But stuff like fit outs etc are gonna have to wait indefinitely.

1. Nice office, and to think I almost ended up working for Microsoft.


2. Belt sander jig


3. First attempt at a hatch. Ply doesn't work so well for joints etc so I will repeat this with a hardwood base. The curved top is three sheets of 4mm ply that will be laminated with epoxy.


4. Ready or not, I'm gonna go for it


5. Success! The mould cut out. A perfect base for forming a window. Now I just have to figure out how to go about applying heat to the perspex over this.

[fergal.b]

What can I say, you were born to do this, I am very impressed with your dedication and work,microsoft would have killed you good career move.

[Gingersnaps]

I'm just wondering would a heat gun, (you know those paint stripper ones) be enough to form/shape the perspex over the window mold??? I've no experience in anything like that but I just thought it might work.

Keep up the great work.