Deck Refinish: Before and After

The deck refinish went alright, its not perfect but most observers wont notice the mistakes unless they look at the boat for a while and the light is right. I couldnt even get them to show up in pictures so I am good with that. I am out of time and patience anyway. It took 7 coats to get a finish I was satisfied enough with. Half of them got sanded completely off leaving maybe 3-4 coats on the boat.
Here are the results, no more cloudy spots! The finish looks pretty good although it looks thinner than before. It will have to do, I could spend the rest of my life going crazy trying to make it perfect.
First are 2 "after" pictures. The "before" pictures are at the bottom for comparison.

Below are the before pictures....so glad those cloudy spots are gone!

Also, a lot less of this orange peel texture I had before which is good but other spots end up looking almost too thin.

Deck refinish cont'd. 1st epoxy coat

Today I sanded the rest of the cockpit coaming area and around the perimeter of the deck up through 220 grit. I was pretty satisfied and the atmosphere was pretty good for applying the 1st epoxy coat and the time of day, mid afternoon=cooling temps for the rest of the day was perfect. So I quickly got the shop vac out and cleaned up.

When I applied the epoxy it was 3:45pm the temp was 68 in the garage and the humidity was 69%. Near pefect, so I can be sure the application wont be a problem this time. Only bad part was the wind was gusty but with epoxy coats I have not had problems with dust.

The best part, no more ugly milky spots on the deck! I only saw two sanding scratches that I didnt get out.

Deck Refinish Cont'd

The deck is now sanded through 80 and 120 grit on the random orbit sander. I have started shaping the outside edge of the deck to put the soft round edge back on it as well as around the cockpit edges. My wife helped me tape off and hang plastic to protect the rest of the boat from drips.

A little more shaping then a couple passes with 220 grit and it will be ready for the first coat of epoxy hopefully in the next day, maybe two. I plan on doing two coats of epoxy then 3 or 4 coats of clear allowing a couple days between coats for cure then hand sanding between coats.

Maintenance: Deck Refinish continued

Im glad my decking is 3/8" thick, I could refinish it many times if need be, but I hope this time it lasts 5 years or so and then only needs a scuff and a couple maintenance coats from now on.
The only issue I have run into is that I sanded a bung down to nothing. I was able to chip what was left of the bung out with my dremel tool then unscrew the screw and resink the hole for the bung and install a new screw and new bung.

Why I am at it I decided I would refinish the dash and carlings as well.

The entire deck was belt sanded with 80 and 120 to get back to bare wood. That took about 7 hours. Scuffing the dash and carlings with 120 on an RO sander took another hour. Im now RO sanding the deck with 120 then 220 before the first epoxy coat goes down.

Maintenance: Deck Refinishing

I have had a trouble free 13 months of use with the finished Zip, other than a couple motor issues now and then.
I never was happy with the final clear coat on the deck though. It has a few rather large blemishes that I lived with so far.
I couldnt take it any longer, I walk past the largest blemish everytime I walk in our out my garage. So as soon as I got back from the Glen-L Gathering of boatbuilders I removed the entire interior and deck hardware then started sanding the deck back to bare wood.
I was riding in my boat in TN sunday morning, the above photo was taken monday evening back in IN.
Here are two of the 4 spots I have and hated. I dont know for sure what caused them, maybe epoxy blush, maybe the Duplicolor tack rags I used, maybe moisture during application? I wish I knew so I could avoid doing it again.

Above is the spot I walk past everyday, you can see I had already taken all the hardware off the deck.

Zip update, Kayak site update

I've been chasing a miss in the motor ever since the last day of the Gathering in TN. The last time we had the Zip out it really ran terrible toward the end of the day. I took it home, spent a lot of time reading on the internet and the service manual for the motor.
I was checking the throttle link and sync to the carb and the sync with the timing advance stop and found it to be out of adjustment according to the manual. When I went to adjust the set screw on the throttle cam-link it broke off in my hand. This part is plastic and has plastic threads which the set-screw threads through. I believe the part was cracked around the threads allowing the adjustment to change due to vibration. I finally found a used part after 25 phone calls or so and have replaced it. I will take the boat out tomorrow and see if its fixed.

I have started the kayak build and have a blog for it at www.woodduckkayak.blogspot.com

New Build=Kayak

Well, I guess I am now a repeat offender. I bought a Kayak kit while on a work trip to Annapolis last week. I stopped by Chesapeake Light Craft and a Wood Duck 10 CNC cut, pre-drilled kit came home with me. http://www.clcboats.com/shop/boats/kayak-kits/wood-duck-10-light-recreational-kayak-kit.html
I dont know when I will start on it but when I do I will link you to the build site. I wont do it on this site that I documented the Glen-L Zip build on, I will keep this for the covering the continued use of the Zip and make a new site for the Kayak build.

The Gathering 4

We just returned from The Gathering of homebuilt boats. What a great time. 40 boats and over 100 people all enjoying 4 days of living on floating cabins with our boats right outside our doorstep at the dock.

Here is the link to my pictures of the event.

http://picasaweb.google.com/vupilot/Gathering2010#