May 19, 2018
With a full day ahead of me, I got out to the Dhows relatively early on this Saturday morning. First up...modifying the aft seat of the white Dhow. In the previous post, you can make out significant damage along the leading edge of the aft seat. With most of the seating still in good shape, I was opposed to ripping it out and fabricating new seating - the deadline for the this project didn't really support that plan of action either. The solution was to rip the leading 1/4" of material from the aft seat, thereby cleaning up its edge.
I laid out a tape line to help with the application of the various saws I'd be using to remove the damaged section.
With a pass on the circular saw, the jig saw, and a final trimming with the oscillating tool, I was able to remove the leading edge of the aft seat.
I cleaned up the edge with the RO sander and an 80-grit disc; and applied a bit of a round-over to soften the freshly cut edge.
While I had the RO sander out, I went ahead and sanding the aft seat and backrest down to bare wood. With a bit of hand-sanding the seat and backrest were now ready for varnish work. I left the varnishing for another day, and instead continued on with my other RO sander on the interior of the hull - paint prep time!
After sanding the interior of the hull, I vacuumed the sanding debris and wiped all surfaces down with a rag dampened with acetone.
Before painting, I needed to get the mast step in place. The white Dhow was built as a rowing dinghy, and because of this, it needed several modifications that are unique to the sailing version: daggerboard slot, daggerboard trunk, mast step, etc. The mast step would go in this morning. I took dimensions from the blue Dhow's mast step: length, width, and height.
I then used a proxy to locate the location of the forward edge of the mast step. I think I may wait to drill the hole for the mast in the forward seat until I at least test sit the seat - I need to get a good vertical alignment.
For now, my interest was in getting the mast step made and installed. I used the dimensions taken from the blue Dhow's mast step and made a "blank" to begin working into position. I used a compass to scribe the hull's concave form onto both the aft and forward portion of the mast step.
After a bit of fine-tuning, I was able to get the white Dhow's mast step nestled into place quite nicely.
Any voids beneath the mast step would be filled with thickened epoxy used to bed the mast step into place. For some reason I did not capture the installation of the mast step, but the following description details the install. I cleaned the oils from the wood's surface with acetone, then painted next epoxy onto both the hull and the mast step. With thickened epoxy (406 and 407), I came back and spread a liberal amount on the bottom of the mast step and then set it firmly into position. I carefully checked alignment while pushing the step down into the hull's concave nest. The squeeze out was captured with a filleting tool, and as the name suggests, I imparted a clean fillet around the base of the mast step.
I moved back into the shop after finishing work on the white Dhow. I sanded the middle and forward set to ready them for another coat of varnish. I also sanded the aft seat and the backrest of the blue Dhow for varnish work. Slightly thinning a few ounces of Epifanes, I applied a coat with a foam brush.
With the balance of varnish, I applied another coat to the blue Dhow's aft seat and backrest. The greenish blocks you see beneath the blue Dhow's aft seat is floatation foam - three blocks for each side of the center seat support to help impart floatation in the boat. I will be using these blocks as templates for floatation foam for the white Dhow.
Total Time Today: 3.5 hrs
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