Hybird MF14

[Chenier]

>> Good that you installed the collar now. <<

Thanks, but I got a bit ahead of myself. Last week's lesson was that I should have painted the inside of the mast step before gluing the collar in place ...

>> I also installed a standard Sunfish self-bailer ... <<

Good idea!

>> You adding a splash guard? Before or after varnishing? <<

Yes. After varnish. The splash coaming is voted "first part of the boat to break" because it's such a tempting target for fat feet. I don't want it epoxied in place so I can fix it as needed.

[Jeff]

Beautiful work!! Jeff

[Bogieman]

Looking forward to your sailing pics

[Chenier]

Here I've masked off the mast collar, daggerboard well and cockpit for paint and varnish.



Initially I thought I'd be varnishing the whole deck next, but later changed my mind. Completing the cockpit now meant I wouldn't have to abuse a varnished deck. So after painting the inside of the mast step & the inside of the daggerboard well, and varnishing the cockpit sides, I re-masked to paint the cockpit bottom.



The inside of the daggerboard well was painted by the ol' "shove a foam roller down there" technique. I had to modify a small trim brush to get past the mast collar to paint the inside of the mast step.

In the second photo you'll see I masked the sides of the cockpit with wax paper. It's much more convenient to work in small sizes like this that cutting up huge sheets of poly. (The white stuff is freezer paper, for the same reason.) However, it was a mistake to wrap the wax paper up onto the deck. Leaning on it to sand, vacuum, clean and paint the cockpit bottom multiple times ground some of the wax into the deck. This was not helpful to the first coat of varnish on the deck! The freezer paper, which is only coated on one side, did not have that problem.

[Chenier]

After painting the cockpit bottom I applied nonskid. There were some "holidays" in the nonskid so I put down more paint where needed and applied more nonskid. The "repairs" ended up as dark blotches. Here they are after a top coat of paint:



I think what I have is a "sponge" of nonskid material, held together by paint of course. Under this theory the dark would be from all the tiny holes between particles in the sponge. I tried sanding them down but that was a non-starter. I ended up putting a couple more coats of paint over them and they disappeared.

[Chenier]

Finally the cockpit is done!

Varnishing and painting the cockpit was a good warm-up for the much larger jobs on the deck, sides, and bottom.



After letting the cockpit dry a bit I masked it over to start varnishing the deck.

[Bogieman]

Very nice work!

[Jeff]

I agree, excellent work!!! She is going to be a beauty!!! Jeff

[Chenier]

Slathered varnish all over it:



Waiting for that to harden, then on to paint the bottom. Imagine the excitement.

[cape man]

WOW!