Commander #65 "Lucky Dawg"

[Lucky Dawg]

A little progress. Crummy weather has made for a slow go of it on the deck work. I found and drilled out all my wet core. Mostly on stbd, under every stanchion, and at the bow pulpit attachment points. I have the first pass of thickened epoxy in my swiss cheese holes. Would have been easier / a one-step process had I known about release fabric - as each hole has a little concave shape to the surface. (I know, I know... release fabric...) Learning as I go! Anyway, that is slated for this week as the rain will finally go away for a couple days. (The only solace in not being in the water is that sailing-weather days have been few and far between.)

I patched my coaming boards, which had some damage upon removal, with epoxy thickened with the mahogany sawdust from sanding. The dark brown will be hidden, of course, against the cockpit sides. They'd also been patched by a PO here and there with MarineTex and the white looked bad, so I dremeled that out and filled with the same epoxy mixture. It took a lot of Bix slathered on for a lot of time, and then standing on those boards with 40 grit at times to get out the old yellow out. Finally down to nice pink mahogany. Nice weather will also let me initiate my Epifanes. What I have removed won't match the Cetol that is on the cabin door, but I'll address that over the winter. Taking apart the companionway would have added another step that would delay sailing. My family is already tapping their collective feet waiting to splash.

I may break down and rent a nearby airplane hanger to get this done inside - I fear unpredictable showers might treat my vinyl-ester fairing compound, not to mention primer and topcoat poorly

p.s. the color in pics 3 and 4 really is nice and pink like the pieces on the driveway, but doesn't look so in these!