Sanding, sanding...

These old wood and epoxy boats need too much sanding!  Both Doreen and I are dock slaves, sanding away on the interior and exterior.  Douglas Fir plywood is notorious for checking, or getting little splits in the grain from contraction and expansion of the soft and hard grains.  We have most of the topsides under control and under a layer of epoxy resin and fiberglass cloth.  The interior, however, is a horse of a different color.  Only resin was originally coated on this side of the plywood, no cloth.  About 20 years ago I laboriously painted the interior and had it quite sharp for a home-build sailing vessel.  But time took its toll and the wood checked.

We have spent several days sanding, and today using paint stripper to get down to bare wood.  The 4 ounce cloth should be here tomorrow according to UPS and I will soon be ready to get some cloth on the wood to act as a screed and hold the checking in place.

If we look at the BIG picture it is a bit overwhelming, so we try to take each day at a time and only concentrate on the job at hand.  One day, Doreen says, it will start to all fall in place and we will see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Rain is predicted for the next several days here in sunny Southern California, so all the work will be below-decks oriented.  One major project is rebuilding the oven and stove.  It is a seat-of-the-pants engineering feat that I frequently find myself enmeshed in.  The original stove had no safety knobs for the burners and oven, so I am replacing the burners with some I pirated from a Cabela's camp stove I bought while in Eastern Washington a year or so ago.  Pictures will follow.