Bow Nose Primered!

     I had no idea how much work simply adding the nose section back to the main hull bow would be.  It has robbed me of time for other projects, but is finally ready for paint.  Like all fiberglass on Etak that is exposed to UV, I put a dark primer coat over the bare epoxy work before going to basic white.  And, what a difference paint makes!  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the white over the primer to post, only the primered part of the bow.

     I was lucky to get several gallons of Z-Spar U109 two part primer at a real low price awhile back, so I bought all that the local marine chandlery  had in stock and kept it for future use.  The mix ratio is 3 to 1, and the paint is typically thick and more dense than water.  The hardener, however, is about like water , so I could not use my gram scale to weigh and get the correct ratio.  All my mixing containers are slope-sided, so measuring depth in the containers would not work either.  What to do?  I used the weighing scale and water to determine where 3-to-1 came on the side of the containers and marked them accordingly.  It then was easy to fill the big cup to the paint line for three parts, then add the one part of hardener.

    The directions say that at 70 degrees F and 50% humidity, there is an eight hour pot life to the mix.  Yesterday I mixed a whole gallon of the primer to cover as much of the topsides and a little of the hull sides as I could get done in my window of time.  Temperature was around 72-73 degrees F inside the cabin, but the humidity was well below the 50% range, and the sun was intense.  That stuff started kicking off too fast!  I did manage to use up the whole gallon before it went off, but toward the end, even with reducer added, it was getting harder and harder to roll on.  Fortunately, it is very sand-able, and the orange peel I left behind will sand down very smooth.  That simply means more of my favorite work later on: sanding!

Here, above, is the starboard side before primer.

And here is the port side view.  Note the fairing in of the 1/8" door skin plywood (the trapezoid shape below the headstay).  The epoxy filler will hide the ridge caused by the wood standing proud of the subsurface skin of the hull).

Port side view again with primer rolled on.

  

This shot shows the starboard side getting the primer treatment.  Note the train on the long trestle laden with double stacked cargo containers.  these trains cross roadways all around us, and blast their horns four times for each crossing.  The sound is not only deafening, but actually may do hearing damage.  We really want to get away from all the trains in this area.  The plus of this industrial part of the greater Los Angeles/Long Beach harbor is that we can actually do work on our boat here in the water as long as we are careful not to get sanding dust in the water.  There are not many marinas around where we would be able to do all the major refit chores we are doing, so we stay put and work away.