Same song, second verse

Sanding, sanding, and more sanding. I spent that past two mornings sanding the inside of the cabin trunk and the overhead. My shoulders are shot - and I still have 3/4 of the overhead to finish - but she's coming along. To give my arms a rest, I alternated between sanding the overhead and some of the vertical surfaces around the boat that needed sanding. During those breaks I finished removing paint from the main bulkheads in the v-berth and the one remaining bulkhead in the galley. The cabin sides and overhead are so irregular that sanding off the white paint sometimes meant sanding fiberglass. As nice as it might be to have the interior surfaces flat, I cheated a little to speed things up and rocked the sander to one side a bit, moving it evenly side to side, to get into the valleys. At any rate, the interior is smoother than it was. The only concern I have is whether or not I need to do a final sanding with finer grit to remove the sanding marks. I'm sure they'll show up when a new coat of paint goes on - and by then it'll be too much hassle,

The pictures below are from yesterday's work. I didn't snap any pics today.

I concluded today's work by sweeping and vacuuming all the dust, then decided to pull up the beat up cabin sole, a 1/4" tongue-and-groove wood floor that must have been original. I'm not entirely sure what I'll put down in its place, but I had the thought that I might find enough scraps from a local contractor to install new a hardwood sole. We shall see.

And the beat goes on

This is the first summer that I've been able to call mine. Every other summer in the last 10 years has had something - either master's work, certification work, travels, or whatever - but this summer is mine! So, in addition to finishing up sailmaking for customers, re-rigging and commissioning Ariel, and taking care of long-neglected odds and ends around the house, I started back in on the A30.

In the past couple days I created templates for two bulkheads (my glue let go on the old bulkhead templates I'd created before), transferred the dimensions to two sheets of plywood, and cut out the new bulkheads.

I epoxied the edges of the bulkheads today, then decided I should do yet more sanding/prep before installation. I focused primarily on the areas where the new tabbing will adhere as well as the cabin sides and overhead, both of which are covered with flaking paint. Despite my eagerness to move forward with bulkhead installation, it was necessary to get all the sanding done first. I call the pic below my "sanding smolder." Ha!