Painting – Day 6

Darren was sanding at 8:30am this morning.  The handrails, recessed back panels, boatman’s beam all needed to be done.  After they were brushed and wiped down with a Tac cloth he applied the second topcoat of red to the panels.  They are start to look very nice but will likely need a 3rd or even a 4th coat.

The tops of the gunwales were masked in preparation for the application of two coats of black grit paint.  Whilst doing this Darren also masked up the tunnel bands on the stern and the cheeks (not aware of the correct term) on either side of  the bow.

The cheeks <?>

Tunnel Bands on the stern

Top of the gunwale with the diesel filler cap masked

Then the first undercoat was painted on

The base colour will be off-white.

Darren then painted the second (and final) coat of black grit onto gunwale.  We now have a nonslip surface.

Darren’s painting plans shows him finishing in another seven working days.

Jan went off to Newbury on the bus for essential provisions whilst I amused myself by fitting a small plastic box purchased from Maplin inside the control column.

It has been machine screwed to the inner steel skin and contains the surplus bow camera cables and fuses.  I hate cutting off surplus cable as you never know when you might just need more at some future date.  Anyway, it’s now hidden inside the column.  But labelled so anyone will know what’s in it!

The next task was to check the brass strip and hatch runners will have sufficient clearance for the rear hatch when it is fitted by Nick (hopefully this week).  There is enough clearance!  Another task was to clean and glue onto the roof two of the cable entry protection caps.  I made a right old mess of this and managed to get construction adhesive all over myself and the roof.  Fortunately white spirits removed most of it.  There is one outstanding cable entry cap to be fitted and it can’t be done until the cable arrives.  The two that were fitted are for the mobile phone antenna and the solar panel cables.  There is currently insufficient funding for the actual panels but fitting the cables during the build seemed a good idea.

Darren isn’t working tomorrow (Sunday) but Nick is.  It will be interesting to see if he manages to get more work completed on Waiouru. One of my tasks will be to test the pump out connections on the roof.  We’ve been using the toilet for 6 weeks and the tank is only showing half full.  Actually by my calculations it probably has a further two weeks of capacity but we want to check it can be emptied before it reaches full and we have an emergency!