WHAT. A. WEEK. Although it's technically Monday now, I have forgiven myself because I only finished painting at 23:48.
At 08:00 last Monday Mike the sandblaster turned up, and fuelled with tea he turned the site apocalyptic:
And the bare steel looked so good!
While he did that I sanded the roof...
...but not to bare steel like 2 years ago — only the top layers, which still took its sweet time. The day after Kev and Robbie showed up with a plasma torch, welders and steel in tow, and started on my list: trim the chine, remove and replace the old weed hatch, tiller tube and deck, and straighten the hatch rail.
It took them 4 days, all the while I was painting, and painting, and more painting (the latest I finished was 1am on Wednesday). A 70ft hull takes fucking forever with a 4-inch roller, but I only did that for the first coat to work it in, after which I got me a 9-inch beast. The paint I'm using is Jotamastic 87, a 2-component epoxy to make the hull bomb-proof, although the first coat I did was the variant with aluminium mixed in for extra abrasion-resistance. It looked awesome:
I am never touching bitumen to black a narrowboat again, and with any luck this will last over 10 years.
And then back to black:
In total I've done 3 coats, and will do a 4th tomorrow. I had to catch up with the stern area after all the welding was done, which was the painting I just finished. The new weed hatch, and a new chonky tiller tube behind it:
And this weekend with a friend visiting, we painted the roof.
Last time I only did 1 coat of Sigmacover 350 (another 2-component epoxy), but this time did 2 because no skimping. It looks a delightful, clean white, and I forgot to take a photo earlier. In hindsight I would've stuck with 1 paint system, Jotun, but I didn't know this would all be happening.
Also in that photo above you can see some new sacrificial anodes! 25kg of magnesium, 5-a-side at 2.5kg each. And also, a new deck and hatches! Excuse the messy late night photo:
In all of this I also discovered rusty steel and holes in the bottoms of the gas lockers, which... I need to deal with. It would not pass muster, and it gives me an opportunity to do it right. There are voids beneath them, and I have no idea what's there or the state of it. So my plan is to cut the walls and floor out, clean it all up, and weld in some fresh steel (I need to check the safety scheme requirements first).
And another issue... engine coolant slowly leaking out of the skin fitting. Welding with water behind is apparently impossible (or you have to get lucky?), because Kev, Robbie and today myself attempted this and it still leaked. So I drilled a hole lower down and drained it out:
I then had a go at welding the pinholes, and who knows if that worked so I lathered it in epoxy:
Tomorrow I shall sand and paint it. And I am now exhausted, but throughout this week I've felt so excited about the boat again, and to do everything properly. :)
Until next Sunday!
- Nick