EBB's PHOTO GALLERY THREAD

[carbonsoup]

Ebb, I am in the process of moving east this next week and it just occurred to me that you are just over the bridge. Are you going to be around the boat on tuesday 5/28? I am actually going sailing on Tuesday from Sausalito and could come over to take a peak. Can you believe I have never been sailing on the bay in nearly 14 years of living in SF?!

Anyway, if you are going to be around and willing to compare notes I would love it. If not, its no big deal, I can still enjoy your work from the web.

Best, matt (carbonsoup, A97)
matt@carbonsoup.com

[ebb]

Capt. Carbon, be great to meet with you.
The boat is up the SanRafael Canal, a good way from great sailing on the Bay,
especially if you're leaving and this is it.

The boat's not back together, it's a mess, altho I'm trying.
We are a poor substitute for a day of sailing on the Bay.
I bet it would be easier to drive up from Sausalito to the SanRafael Yacht Harbor
than sailing or more probably motoring in.....and all the way out again.
And the tides maybe not cooperating.

If it is this week end, and you really have to see this landlocked vessel,
it may be better if you tell me when you can make it?
I'm probably more flexible. Maybe do it Monday or, better, afetr Tuesday next week?
Or this Friday (tomorrow) around noon? Or like early Sat AM befor sailing, or after?
I am up against a renewal deadline for getting the old Dodge truck smogged,
so I have to spend time doing that also.

Send me a phone number on the private message channel if you wish.

[ebb]

EXAMPLE:

25°C......................77°F
x 2 = 50................-32 = 45
- 1/10 = 45...........+ 1/10 = 50
+32 = 77°F...........x ½ = 25°C

.................................................. ..........................................
Challenge is to find an instant step conversion. C to F:
(found on internet - if I locate the source again, I'll post it here.)
F to C: Harder but doable.
Can't think in Centigrade, I'm a Fahrenheit fan.
.................................................. ..........................................
C to F: double C → minus 10% → plus 32 = F (accurate)
F to C: F minus 30 → plus 10% → take half = C (close enough)

.................................................. ..........................................

F is literate.
C is laboratory: at zero water freezes, at 100° water boils.

F zero, it's too frikking cold even in Denmark.
At two digit 32° it's freezing, but you got a chance.
At F 100°, it's getting into a 3-alarm heat wave
(while in C scale, it'll be 37.5° - close to freezing in my book.)

Fahrenheit is a finer tuned scale and more expressive.
98.6° is normal human body temp. 104° it's heat stroke or fever,
a 5.4° spread. For emphasis, it crosses a two to a three digit gradient.
Celsius, it's 37° and 40° - a 3° separation. Fahrenheit says it way better.

Holy centigrade! it's going to be over 37.5° today! ....no, rilly?.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fahrenheit is actually a guy's name. Argument is fortified by 'soul'!
Centigrade, could say, has some life... as in centipede, not souled.

[paulsproesser]

EXAMPLE:
In tech school we were required to learn this and also conversion to Kelvin and Rankin. And we had to learn that and a lot of other formulas without the use of a calculator. And I've never needed it since. Nowadays all your digital thermometers will read either and your cell phone has an app for it. Another cool app I found useful is the inclinometer app which allows you to get the pitch of a fan blade or the pitch of your deck surfaces.
25°C......................77°F
x 2 = 50................-32 = 45
- 1/10 = 45...........+ 1/10 = 50
+32 = 77°F...........x ½ = 25°C

.................................................. ..........................................
Challenge is to find an instant step conversion. C to F:
(found on internet - if I locate the source again, I'll post it here.)
F to C: Harder but doable.
Can't think in Centigrade, I'm a Fahrenheit fan.
.................................................. ..........................................
C to F: double C > minus 10% > plus 32 = F (accurate)
F to C: F minus 30 > plus 10% > take half = C (close enough)

.................................................. ..........................................

F is literate.
C is laboratory: at zero water freezes, at 100° water boils.

F zero, it's too frikking cold even in Denmark.
At two digit 32° it's freezing, but you got a chance.
At F 100°, it's getting into a 3-alarm heat wave
(while in C scale, it'll be 37.5° - close to freezing in my book.)

Fahrenheit is a finer tuned scale and more expressive.
98.6° is normal human body temp. 104° it's heat stroke or fever,
a 5.4° spread. For emphasis, it crosses a two to a three digit gradient.
Celsius, it's 37° and 40° - a 3° separation. Fahrenheit says it way better.

Holy catfish! it's going to be over 37.5° today! ....no, rilly?.....

[frank durant]

Ebb....UPDATES.....pictures..... WE NEED UPDATES AND PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


:-)

[ebb]

Frank, how are you doing!

Oh Boy, miss the energy of way back then....
But I am stirring the stew. Ordered sails from the finest sailmaker on the planet.
That alone is a huge boot in the butt.
Now have too large, but to hell with it, Hayn rigging....from Rigging Only.....rig da blinking mast.

Ready to fit the mahogany coamings. Still agonizing how to mount the winches. Whether to cap or not!!

Have an enormous urge to paint the mahogany bulworks with the same grey paint that's on the boot top...
(can do that later...right?)(lemmie see, seal w/ epoxy, fill the grain, 3 coats of varnish...then paint!)

You once told me the secret was to finish EACH project, only then move on to the next...

I have seventeen of them going like spinning plates. Ooops
Many have fallen, couple broke, and may have forgotten how the hell I ever got them spinning.
It's always been like this....
This time I'm getting there. Have to....
Gotta quit the job.
Ree diculous, I'm two decades beyond retirement. Getting out of jail without a 'free' card.

Holding the bright image. Feel the tiller in my hand.
Pushing off....oh man... the boat is coming alive..
Pull the hat down, adjusting the shades, here ah come!
Really.

[frank durant]

[ Holding the bright image. Feel the tiller in my hand.
Pushing off....oh man... the boat is coming alive..
Pull the hat down, adjusting the shades, here ah come!
Really.[/QUOTE]

Keep THAT image Ebb!!

Get motivated. Learn "acceptable tolerances"

I just sailed into HopeTown (Elbow Cay) from Marsh Harbour this morning.
Nice wind, blue green water...shorts-no T shirt

Ya gotta get your butt over here!!!

Keep the faith buddy!!!!!

Remember...I'm flying in for launch day!

[frank durant]

PS....Ebb...you asked how I was doing...

Bad knees, awful shoulder, deaf on left side....but....

http://sailfar.net/forum/index.php?t...49675#msg49675

[ebb]

For the first time ever on another computer, another location...
still in the same county....but I'm getting the idea!

Probably will feel too embarrassed or too harried when splash comes.
Probably sneak it in on a foggy morning, me & the crane operator.
...after what I've done to her, will litlgull even float on her lines?...

Frank,
Used yer blue line and followed you & yer float through a couple pages,
a couple far away estuaries and a couple eateries and a couple where?
harbors and a couple minutes on what I understood is a ComPac27?
...couple nice there too!! ah h h yes... guess I've been out of touch!

OK ok, one of these days, some anchorage, there'll be this strange little
sloop/cutter...you'll recognize it as an Arielberg ...with aluminum nose.
And this old guy is sitting there complaining about some damn thing
probably:
....Hey, Frank, whot hapnin?
Hey, Ebb, you finally made it...

(continue this later, gotta go congrats a friend who's just
successfully made it out of surgery......)

Her's was a rotorooter - a clotted artery, a slowing that stops people dead...
like littlgull's lifestyle of plastic prosthetics clogging the way to a place in the sun.

LongJohnSilver got along fine with a plain wood peg (wonder what wood?
was it silver bound?)...I could've upgraded a rail at a time... and gone sailing...
My friend is real, the Ahreal has no anthropomorphic flesh & blood comparing
with her, except to me...and she, the 26ft one, speaks more to primal breath...

When I said soul, clapped my chest - the seat of the breath, the gift of life.
The boat's sails likewise breathe in the planet's gift of life.
More than a bit scared of foul & fair winds yet to come, I think.
Way more afraid of hospitals, 'senior care', druuugs, and white collar clones.
And the last ten or twenty consigned to professionals...
It's time to head offshore... time to get some of that ocean air.
__________________________________________________ ___________________

I have a feeling my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
And nothing
happens! Nothing....Silence....Waves

-- Nothing happens? Or has everything
happened
and are we standing now,
in the new life?
Juan Ramon Jiminez (from A.V.)

[Bill]

If he won’t post his recent progress, at least he can share this:

“My first boat was a 29 foot, gaff rig, reeving bowsprit sloop named SKUA. She was given away some 20 years ago, and never heard from again! The boat was all original from the rubbing strake up. Thought you'd like to see her ... bears some little resemblance to the Ariel, doesn't it?”

[ebb]

{Pg21 #420}
SKUA was donated to - what they said was - a sailing school for 'disadvantaged' kids in
Alviso / San Jose. May have expected new owners to come back with a Hi! and a few
photos of happy young urban sailors pulling ropes or something. Eventually looked up
the school on the web, discovered the guy who signed the papers had a very abrasive
relationship, not only with Alviso locals, but with various bayshore restoration agencies,
and the all powerful BCDC. They dragged him into court and punished him with huge
fines for dumping riprap on his shore front.
Photos, also found on the web, revealed the school office to be a dilapidated trailer,
and a marina totally overgrown and disappeared into a sea of rush and cattails.

Drove down there once: trailer was gone, found a 'no trespass' sign that also identified
the vacated mess as sailing school property,
abandoned plastic boats in the photos were gone.

.................................................. .................................................. ..................................
Skuas mate for life. They are found at both poles and are pelagic. They eat penguin
chicks whole. They don't fish, they take it away from specialist birds. Kind of like
politicians, and amateur boatbuilders.
They are fearless, will attack humans when they go near their young.

There be no sea hawks, but if there were, they be skuas. They are ends-of-the-earth
creatures. When polar explorers see a bird, it's likely a skua sailing by. Back then,
seemed like a great boat name for embracing global adventures and the future together.
When our single chick turned 18, divorce made it a relic.

Took the boat out on the Bay... alone, stupidly... without an experienced sailor to chat
with. The narrow bow and beam, and long heavy bowsprit seemed wrong for offshore,
it's long straight keel and shallow draft gave it an uncomfortable tippy motion.
But the boat was a memento of a broken 30year partnership - couldn't raise sail without
ache in the gut. Tried to sell it. One guy came aboard, sat down with me in the all
teak accommodation below, and told me all what was wrong with my apprentice ship.

Historical photo in the previous post reminds me -- when I see those strangers: new
owner and his buddies on deck, they had just picked up Skua in Sausalito and were
headed south to the bottom of the Bay -- remember at the time having a feeling that
something wasn't right. The clowns didn't have a sailor's curiosity to hank on the staysl
and spread that glorious gaff main!

Man!...cutter still looks pretty cool!
And in a couple winks, she was gone like a bird. The link broke forever. Without a trace.

.................................................. .................................................. ..................................
Jack Boyce and Joanne Kyger, who had property in Bolinas, were building a house,
saw my ridiculous and isolated predicament (beginning to work on the hull at 10thSt in
Berkeley), and invited me out, lock, stock and barrel to build the boat there, with friends,
without rent, at the end of their driveway in rural California. It became more than 30
years of awakening, working for Bill Brown as a gardener, love, marriage, finding
carpentry, curmudgenery, fatherness, and divorce.

Boat itself could not have been built without the support, patience, advice, and genius
of yacht designer Lauren Williams.

Nor could the Skua have made it out of the ...... Lagoon without the lip and tips and
hilarious weekend lunches at Ed Letter's Marine in Bobo with Babe Lamerdin, John
Linderman and the Elizabeth Muir. No one told a joke better than Babe, and John
could recite every twisted limerick ever conceived in the cerebral cortex of the human male.

And later on, the guidance and teaching of Donald Goring at Lee Sail Loft, Alameda,
who so generously laid out and cut on his loft floor the Egyptian cotton we brought him
-- and taught the EX the marvelous exacting art of sewing and roping a gaff mainsail.
An amazing achievement -- that huge sail -- every stitch, rat-tail and cringle by hand !!
Jib and staysl, too!!

Quite possibly never thanked her enough...
Nor the extraordinary sailors who shared their time and passion and know-how with us...

[ebb]

masking tape paint peeling trick
MAST focus: OK, So the new sailtrack holes are just done and tapped for 8-32MS.

The old bronze track has a 3" jog between holes -- the new Schaefer s.s. track: 2 3/4".
Could not avoid some ten old holes showing up in the 26 feet of new track cable-tied
to the mast. These voids really can't be redrilled for a larger screw. Theoretically
possible, but they don't show up exactly on target, centered in the new track -- or they
happen to be wonkus corroded cavities, filled with LabMetal, that aren't smart to tap.

Drilled the ten holes at each location offset about 1/2" above. First, wiresize #29 for
the 8-32 tap, in cobalt, thru both track and mast, then wedged up track in place and
carefully opened the new sailtrack holes to match Schaefer's. Then tapped the offsets.
Made a pencil mark at all filled & blank locations on the mast, to avoid them, actually
by temporarily taping the old track back where it had hung out for the last 50 years.
Got a perpetual GaryLarson 'My brain Is Full' coffee mug, for that!

Stuck a small piece of blue tape at the 10 offset holes as eye markers. New holes
drilled and tapped spread out along the length of the new track... job done.
(Schaefer track also has 10 more holes and fasteners than the old. That's good.)
Thumbnail the blue tape....peel back the pieces, ...and...they

ALL LIFT OFF WITH GRAY ALUTHANE COLOR STUCK TO THE TAPE !
Holymoley, it's a very thin 'leaf' of mast -- touch an edge and the gray LPU flakes.

This is your everyday non-aggressive 3M blue stick-and-peel masking tape.... How
can indestructible Aluthane be lifting off? ...Water Reducible LPU? ...seems lifeless.
Must have cut the product too much. But if it failed, how did tape pull Aluthane off
as well? Seems it lifted only the micron contact bond the LPU made with aluminum
paint. Yet multiple clear coatings cured with no cohesive strength.
This is a 100% system fail.

This contact bond makes it difficult to scrub the clear coat off. Various Scotchbrite
pads, water, solvents...and hard work removed some failed coating...but... Tried
the heat gun, that didn't work. Scrubbing with maroon pads also created streaks of
raw aluminum... as did mechanical sanding with the ocsillating Makita. !@#$%!
Thought about using blue tape as the remover. Expensive. And not realistic. Not
Funny. NONE of this is realistic! Especially scrubbing and sanding! @#$%!

Blame !@#$%! SYSTEM 3 for this failure? Had mysterious problems with a 2-part
epoxy product of theirs that cost a lot of time to fix, plus a kind of grief in loosing
trust in a greener company. {System 3 --T-88 Structural Epoxy --pg 17 #325.}

Water reducible linear polyurethane is a huge achievement in the war we must win
over global terrorist chemical corporations killing our planet. We slaves approve
and support them at every opportunity... while they and their armageddonist
brethren relentlessly diminish all life. Played too loose & free with System 3!
Have 5 quarts of their WR-LPU colors ... that now will never be used on Littlegull.

The mast has been curing on burritos outside in the weather, like me not doing much
work. There are endless variables leading to coating failure. Intercoat adhesion:
like perfect coats, weaker or stronger, applied in the wrong order.
Coating thickness, cutting it too much. (Never heard of failure in thinning varnish 50%
... but varnish is usually oil based, not water reducible urethane.) High heat, low
humidity, sun spots... ... Wisecrack that System 3 is too provincial for us down here in
Temperate-ville, being manufactured up in cold damp overcast Washington state.

Technique also might be a cause, the usual:: sterate or latex white sandpaper, tack
rag, solvent uncleaning wash, soap residue, or interpreting instructions wrong: stroke
left to right, not up and down. Yes, but WR ClearCoat operation was rolled on in a
single uninterrupted series. The price to pay for more shiney and more longevity may
not be worth the price, if a system is so picky that a non-professional optimist can't
expect decent results from the time, effort, and high priced investment in what is
essentially a "cosmetic coating for a recreational vehicle". Only Awlgrip has the moxi
to be a chemical warlord in the shipyard... We Normals want paints that are forgiving.

MY ASSOCIATION WITH ALL SYSTEM 3 PRODUCTS IS TERMINATED

__________________________________________________ ______________________
Think about how stupid the average person is
and then realize that half of them are stupider that that. George Carlin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~

LATER EDIT. Ebb's first attempt at uploading pics from the pic file... frickinhuge!!

2nd pic shows a green tap fluid I can possibly recommend. Assume it cleans up with
soap and water or isopropyl without leaving an evil residue. 'SAFETAP ULTIMA:
Environmentally friendly, biodegradable, non-staining and odorless. Looks like a
transparent viscous oil, yet leaves no oil on the work.* Contains no oil, no solvents,
no sulfur or chlorine and NO SILICONES. Works on all metals, but especially good
with aluminum'. MSDS is useless for ingredients, as it has no hazardous ones, the
Technical Data Sheet has all the hype just mentioned, but no words recommending
squeaky cleanup. Of dozens, not a single vendor or forum have anything to add
beyond the manufacturer's BS, concerning the actual use of this product!* Safetap
does us no favors: The hype doesn't clue us as to what in hell the non-oil fluid is!
More important, the manufacturer never lets us know what to clean it off with!!
Oh wise one, what's that all about? Why keep it secret?


That piece of blue is a reminder marker for drilling new holes, mentioned in text.
A tap drill has just made a new hole in the mast 1/2" above an old hole that is way
oversized for any screw. Hole in track is then propped up with scrap polyethylene
sheet and redrilled to match Schaefer's. Notice -- on right the end of the original
Pearson bronze track -- one side of the 'T' drastically reduced from decades of
uneven wear. Photo shot before discovering the bluetape peel-away surprise.

BROKEN HAND TAPS
(Most good tap and die sets are 4fluke HSS. Tap thread cutting is done with a bore
that has four thin ridges of cutters and four proportionly wide flukes that collect the
cutting waste. In smaller sizes we use: #6, 8, 10 12 & 14, the taps are fragile and
will eventually break in your work. McMasterCarr has upgrade taps & dies for various
metals and wallets. Also, you should have a set of Walton TAP Extractors in your
kit. They work by extending 4 hard wires down into the flukes of the broken tap in
your work.... which you adjust and turn to dislodge. They really work well getting
the jammed tip out... once you get the pins inserted. In a perfect world, I'd have a
set of 3fluke tap cutters, which naturally have a stronger column.
Check out McMasterCarr's stubby cobalt tap-required wire size bits for drilling soft
& hard metal... haven't broken one yet!)

First pic shows a piece of masking tape that has lifted what appears to be a large
flake of all 8 WRLPU coating layers -- plus what appears to be the last coat of the
moisture cure aluminum-filled urethane 'primer' that preceded the lpu.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~

'Official' SAFETAP REMOVAL Painting finicky aluminum requires careful prep.

*So I called up MSC Industries that catalogs Safetap, from whom I may have
ordered. Spoke with a very helpful gal who like me could find nothing on what is
officially used to clean away Safetap. She gave me itwprobrands customer service
email. customerservice@itwprobrands.com
Obviously some huge conglomerate with no time for the unwashed. LO, after a
brief compliment, mentioning my tapping 100 holes.. got a nearly immediate email
back from Jada, who said, isopropyl alcohol is adequate for removing Safetap.
But recommends an LPS aerosol product called EFX.
http://www.lpslabs.com/product-details/609.
Naturally, smelling a rat, looked up the MSDS on LPS EFX and discover it's mostly
N-heptane: who knows, a not too horribly toxic, extremely explosive, petroleum
solvent. BUT, the can is under pressure and can blast 'not-oil' from every hidden
crevice. Page 1 of the 10 page MSDS has a FIRST I've never seen before!... a

"PLAIN LANGUAGE HAZARD SUMMARY".
And so it is. How about that! Imco, Very cool.

* ( not cool, is that the highly poofed environmental/biodegradable product has to
privately recommend via email a nasty volatile petroleum solvent to guarantee
Safetap contaminated surfaces are cleared completely for painting prep.
Especially important for galvanic aluminum, for which this product is recommended.
Nothing in the product hype or the technical data sheet about removing all traces
before next process. Confusing that SafeTap deliberately ignores this vital step.

There are a number of safer environmental degreasers (like EMERGE: no TSP, no
phosphates, etc) available -- none advised here.
SafeTap seems to be so embarrassed that they must lie by omission.
Do not 'seem' to withhold information, because this is what they actually do.)
Imco, offensive & improper. Looking for another 'environmental' tapping fluid.

"Like all valuable commodities, truth is often counterfeited." J.C.Gibbons

[Bisquit]

Ebb - did you have your window frames anodized? If so what anodizing process did you use? C-025 Bisquit - Phil

[ebb]

Capt BisQuick suh, Not quite sure where we are with the originals from A-338.
There is too much background to reiterate here.
Went the powder-coat route with the big windows... and later decided not to use them.
Altered them to take thru machine bolts (outside to inside) because the bitty #6MS
blind holes in the frame of the original were corroded, and I didn't like their flimsy
nature. Those large lights translated to aluminum were a bad idea. However, to
make them work I felt the cabin sides had to be stabilized. Some of that story is here.

The two forward opening lights are also aluminum -- and I also had them coated in the
same "bronze" color polyester powder, that I didn't get charged extra for, because they
happened to be using a batch that week. There are many little pieces,
Miller Powder Coating (Rohnert Park) did a champion job.

BUT, the polyester adds thickness overall. I ended up with the all important exterior trim
ring unable to slip over the frame. Can't grind the coating off to make it fit... because
the aluminum will have a fit... it'll corrode because it won't oxidize properly. But as an
experiment will grind the coating edge open so it slides over the spigot... touch up the
wound with an artist's brush and some of that Aluthane -- see if it works, see if it lasts....

Once you've coated aluminum you can't afford a scratch, because aluminum will start
to bubble & creep. While a scratch on raw aluminum will heal itself, coated aluminum
when scratched will create enough electric potential difference between scratch and
coating in water and salt to cause corrosion. Even tho our mast and fittings are marine
Almag, observation shows plenty of opportunity for our alloy to corrode. Yet, some
ancient almag cleats came off with no evidence of bedding compound...leaving a pristine
anodized footprint like the day it was screwed on 5 decades earlier.. Some were
intensely corroded along with the screws and holes..
Anodize is best and safest for new aluminum. It's a beautiful translucent, porous,
chemical bond oxide finish, yet when scratched may still create potential to corrode.

Would just start phoning around, maybe the internet, for an outfit that does small jobs or
marine work. Aluminum masts are still popular these days, so you have to find somebody.

Anodize comes in hundreds of colors. If you don't like the aluminum look, maybe there's
a bronze or brown that will be perfect -- especially on some of those original beautiful
sculpted chocks and cleats they did back in Holland 50 years ago. While both systems
are environmentally friendly, anodizing is a passivation process done in huge tanks,
and may not be available for small projects.

Good luck with your amazing project!~!
http://www.anoplate.com/
__________________________________________________ __________________________
Aluthane, the aluminum filled moisture cure urethane, mentioned previously, could to
some extreme, be used to coat your aluminum fittings. Haven't done it**, we need a
guinea pig! Aluminum, in current practice, cannot be coated with any foreign substance,
without precise highly toxic two part chemical washes, and toxic tie-coat primer.
SO THEY SAY. However, this aluminum filled urethane has, or should I say, is gaining a
rep for bonding with any metal, and many other materials. Whether it will take the place
of chromates and primer remains to be seen..
Am hopeful. This guinea pig has bonded with his original Pearson mast.

Coating has some quirks : It goes on very very thin, if the surface to paint is smooth the
result will be dull, if it's rough, the coating appears shiney and bright! If you returned the
lid to the can with but one drop of liquid in the moat, the lid is welded there forever,
cannot be pried opened. Partial cans will skin over. Skin fractures when lifted, want a
fine mesh paper filter into a new container. CO2 or argon toppers don't seem to give
even an extra day! A different animal, this ALUTHANE. If I had mangy cleats, I'd dress
them in this urethane ....There is a learning curve to working with it: even roll & tip
requires practice, it's so fast. Like other 'moisture cure', once you open it, it starts to
harden. Try to save it longterm for later, you come back to an aluminum hockey puck.

**except for the mast, where the coating seems almost fused with the old aluminum.
__________________________________________________ _________________________
Instead of tediously grinding failed coats off my poor old mast, SOY-GEL will be tried
instead: it's a safer remover, non-toxic, bio-degradable low-VOC gel. FIRST OF ITS KIND.
Probably digest the Aluthane also!! Should be interesting. ..Stay tuned....
chubble chubble wheeek!
__________________________________________________ __________________________
We have a 100% green Metalco Anodizing, Emeryville, Calif. that specializes in clear,
bronze, and black anodizing. Haven't contacted them.

later EDIT: Talked with Metalco about bringing in projects. No problem with 6061-T-6
with any welding done using 5356 filler rod... for clear anodizing. Or Almag, I'd guess.
Believe their process is a sulfuric acid base, but they produce no toxic waste, and the
plant is near residential neighborhoods. Most anodizers use sulfuric acid which produces
the clear coat we see on masts and booms.
Sulfuric acid hardcoat triple dip oxide process thickens overall dimensions, and can
also repair worn surfaces. Type I chromic acid process produces a very thin anodize that
does not thicken the work, but doesn't provide much abrasion resistance either.
Would be interesting to see what happens when some well preserved Ariel/Commander
Almag chocks and cleats get treated to a nice bronze hardcoat anodized process!!

[ebb]

TRIAL OF SOY-GEL PAINT REMOVER. Tale of two strippers.

W-a-y past my project sanding days. Orbital Makita and Bosch disks didn't really
want to off the failed System3 WR-LPU clear coat... Looked around the web: found
this yummy SOY-GEL stripper. Local paint stores don't have it. Nor online marine or
paint suppliers. Got 2 qts - and a bottle of recommended EMERGE degreaser - from
Rockler ($70 incl S&H). Brushed it on thick as it would go per instructions, covered
it with plastic film, watched the surface crinkle in some places, but not all over... for
a couple days. Pulled the film, spent hours, a whole day, scraping the clear coat
and a little of the Aluthane off. Wash down with detergent and nylon pads......
Turns out this was stage one of the 'process'. (2qts for 44sqft of mast surface.)

The coating didn't turn into cottage cheese, as the product video shows. In places it
lifted bubbly skin of still fairly tough coating... and at others just ignored it. Now
committed (what nut house is this?)... figured I needed at least a gallon more gel.
Rockler took forever getting to me. Lo and behold: found it in McMasterCarr, who
delivered a gallon next day, pronto. ($90 incl S&H)!!!
Slopped on 2 more heavy coats, with 2 more episodes of scraping layers of sticky
skin that the stripper merely lifted rather than convert into that more appetizing
cottage cheese, magically wiped off with handfuls of towels the video shows. Each
installment also got scrubbed down with detergent and nylon pads.... The Soy-Gel
leaves a kind of oily residue. Used non-toxic Emerge degreaser after 3rd scrub down.

Realize we are talking about removing urethane. But it's advertised to easily do that.
Realized at the beginning that using a stripper would probably mean taking all coating
off, because the action of stripper is to degrade whatever it penetrates. Penetration
was and is an unknown. In this case: dashed expectations, disappointing experience,
a lot of work, lots of bucks. Been smarter to grind off the bloody failed LPU leaving
most of the Aluthane. Got taken again, by my brain pilot, who seems to be loosing it...
But it does show just how tough the metallic Aluthane is. That's one lonely thing.

Stripping paint asks for trouble. Depressing! ....this event also degraded ALL the
Lab-metal repairs on the mast! The naked and now reversed mast looks horrible,
quite literally, back to its original painful state. Old pits, corrosions, forensic voids that
Lab-metal compound transformed to like-new again, turns out nothing more than a
cosmetic facial... like those fem-crèmmercials on tv... same old face under the paste.
Alvin, an old welding products company (1950s), produces helpful cans of heat-proof
lotions and this particular rather toxic "metal repair" paste... I did have fun with it.
Even tho it's high heat paste,*it still is epoxy. Which Soy-Gel destroyed!!!


MECHAICALLY FILLING MAST TRACK HOLES
Used the compound to plug the hundred+ old sail track holes. None survived the
remover, all softened back to paste. >Using a #1 drillbit, found bright metal in
nearly all the old holes for a 1/4-28 tap - which cut 3 1/2 threads in the mast's 1/8"
thickness. Now plugged with a tiny disk of aluminum all-thread stud. McMasterCarr
came through with 1" 1/4-28 aluminum 6061 all-thread studs! ($6.61 for 25)
Piece of cake. {I know: seen that guy do it with a die on a long piece of all-thread!}
Art brushed epoxy into new-thread holes and ends of the studs, inserted each into
its final resting place, gave each 3.5 twists -- let them cure, ground them off flush.

Somewhere else on the planet 1" 1/4-28 aluminum studs are being used... for what?

Can not recommend Soy-Gel. Besides being a botch and odd performer, weeks
of work: on a boat, do we ever want to use a paint stripper that eats epoxy?**

It has that one good thing going for it: it's kind on your skin (found it does a good
job painlessly removing oil from the skin of my hands). It is a paint remover: clear
colored, nearly odorless, makes it easy to track. Gets on gloves and places like door
& tool handles, easy to pick up by accident, carry to other places, like eyes and
pets and food.

Bye bye Soy-Gel.! But it did not touch the Durafix repairs. Notably, that white
death oxide disaster above the shevebox where the curved tang for foresail blocks
originally fastened. Mast metal... just gone. In that space, created an awkward fill
using 730F aluminum alloy sticks and Mapp gas. Embarrassing to see it revealed
again, yet looks like the alloy managed to 'weld' the sides of the missing track-flat
together... like it bridged to good aluminum on each side. Nothing will attach there.
Mid mast, two large Lab-metal filled holes also fell out. Have an idea (o-oh!) how
to get them filled... permanently with Durafix.
__________________________________________________ _________________

**All paint removers are bombs. Destroy everything down to the ground. Some
are fast, some slow, some are advertised as gentle on the original gel-coat. We
are well past that issue now. Most skippers have removed all their old bottom paint.
And then waterproofed the old gel-coat with an epoxy hardcoat barrier. There are
dozens of removers. Toxic, caustic, new gen -- all chemical. There is no chemical
stripper that will not attack epoxy. >>There's one: DumondPeelAway, which I
once used on litlgull's bottom... life changing experience never to be visited again:

Red can PeelAwayMarineStrip (NOT "SafetyStrip".)...watch your colors....is the
non toxic, non-carcinogenic, zero VOC, non flammable stripper that will non remove
epoxy barrier coat, if you don't leave it on too long. PeelAway paste is troweled
on, covered with 'laminated paper', which combines with "30 coats" of any paint.
That is then troweled off. But some areas must be done over, not all comes off.
Ran out of paper-film, plain plastic doesn't work as well. Days, weeks...real bulky
mess under the boat.... the result, if you did put down black plastic under the boat,
is like dealing with a couple dead horses. If not toxic, it looks toxic... heavy, sloppy,
slimey, sodden, disgusting mess... that has to go to the dump, if you disguise it.
Then you hose and scrub down, neutralize with Citri-Lize and hose it again. $$$$
Ariel bottom wetted area = 250sqft = 5gal + extra paper. (Had to get more...)
Two gallons troweled on the Mast may have been more sane... doubt it.

Nobody on the web likes PeelAway -- except Practical Sailor -- who in 2006
compared it with nine others using a one square foot(!) layout sample for each....
on an actual boat with "several layers" of anti-fouling. Practical Joke for the DIYr .
google: Past Adventures With Chemical Strippers - Practical Sailor. Half fast!

The yard requires a vacuum sander - this method probably is the cleanest (not
the quietest) way yet -- requires expensive equipment and young arms.[/I]
__________________________________________________ ___________________
*Alvin Lab-metal MSDS http://www.alvinproducts.com/
"Section 2 Hazard(s)......................................... ...... Aluminum Powder 51.98%
.................................................. ............................Methyl Ethyl Ketone 9.77%
.................................................. .............Toluene (Haps) 8.94%" = 70.69% "

(separate can...Lab-metal Solvent:.............................. 52% toluene, 48% acetone)

70.69%...no mention what the remainder is. Somewhere in the lit we see this clue:
"there's no need to mix two parts of the repair paste". Regular Lab-metal repairs can
be powder coated to 425F. Also available, is a separate super heat resistant Lab-
metal that will take over 1000F!! Because of this durability, the missing binder didn't
register as a one-legged epoxy to my po' little gray cells... Never mentioned in the
MSDS, the Data Sheet or Brochure that the missing percentage: 29.31%, is actually
non-hazardous epoxy or epoxyester... which !@#$%! SoyGel sucked the life out of..
WOW, do I make a mess of things!
http://www.alvinproducts.com/ Just above JayLeno click: Powder Coaters Click Here.
You'll find a YouTube and a couple important tips about solvents, the product tag is
'epoxy putty'. Find lists for its uses, but nowhere does it say what can be coated
over Lab-metal. "Acetone & MEK will soften hardened Lab-metal." Both of these
are ketones. Ketones are the hot side of solvents and lacquer paints: the aromatics.
Aliphatics, generally not as lethal and by default may be OK, enamels & coatings
that use mineral spirits, VM&P naptha & hexanes. Gasoline and kerosene also aliphatic.
__________________________________________________ __________

"Writing, I explained, was mainly an attempt to out-argue one's past;
to present events in such a light that battles lost in life were either won
on paper or held to a draw." Jules Feifer