Taking the plunge!

[Blue_Runner]

Eh Mon, ya be sef oer der and herry bek!

p.s. nice work on the boat/motor so far.

[ludacrous999b]

Ya know blue I used to work at catawba college, built sets and ran the road shows through their theatre dept. Lived in charlotte up until two years ago. Thanks for the encouragment.

[Blue_Runner]

Oh cool! Right around the corner from here. I lived in Charlotte while attending UNCC. Couldn't wait to get away! I'm a country boy at heart, thankfully!

[ludacrous999b]

No boat porn today, I spent about three hours cleaning out the bilges. They are still not clean all the way. The bow, live well, and most of the engine bilges are clean, I'll have to spray a ton of degreaser in there. That thing is filthy. The after region where the deck drains into the rear by the transom, then filters down to the sides of the engine stringers then is supposed to filter into the live well, then engine bilges. Stupid. Anyone object to drilling new drains through the engine stringers straight into the engine bilge if I waterproof them?

[ludacrous999b]

Trying out a product to remove oxidation. Seasense cleaner wax, sold at my local wally world. Turning out to get a shine (which I was able to do) Apply seasense, buff, turtle wax rubbing and polishing compound, buff, then turtlewax polish, buff. 2' x 2' sections work. Tried just the rubbing compound and polish, no luck. Had to get all the oxidation off with the Seasense. Finding I'm having to do it all by hand except the final buff. Still not a quick process. But it does shine.

[ludacrous999b]

Here is a step by step of what I did today, my last two posts were kinda jumbled.

1. Used a lemon and salt combination to try to remove some oxidation on the aluminium frame of the drivers side windshield, some success but it will take FOREVER to try to do it with this natural kind of cleaner, not to mention a lemon trees worth of lemons. Worked the drivers side and started washing it down and...

2. Crawled into the cuddy and sprayed that down, then decided shag carped is prolly holding a little tiny itty butty bit of mold... Started ripping it out, found 9 abandoned mud dobber nestes and a lot of collected dirt under the carpet. Got from the bow to starboard side. As I was ripping it out i noticed a goodly amount of dust flying out. Then some insane itching. Well crap, so I abandoned the carpet pull and started....

3. I removed the wood trip in the cuddy and the guide rails on top of the bow. Worked on removing the deck cleats, nav lights and old bow railing bases. They started crumbling as I tried to remove them. Pain to remove the screws with those little stop tabs on the bottom side when its just me there...

4. Decided to remove the dust and dirt from the cuddy and spray it down the bilges. Noticed the anchor storage bin does not have a bilge drain in it... Smart. Sprayed from the front to the back working all the dirt down, past the live well bins, into the engine bilge.

5. Mechanic needs me to clean the grease out of the bilge area so I started spraying down the area and noticed my drain plug kept getting clogged so I let it finish draining and pulled 12-15 big handfuls of dirt and debris (all slimy and oily) from the area under the engine and tossed it into the garbage (environmentalism and all) then started spraying down the bilge and using the old oil dip stick with it's curvy bottom to dig the blockages out. It's still a little dirty down there but I'll get some dawn, plug up the drain plug hole and fill her up to the bottom of the engine to eat some of that grease.

6. Noticed the poor drainage design from the deck drain holes, to the aft area bilge, the port sides drain hole from the aft to the engine transom drain has been eaten away, there must be 4 inches of scum under that hole. I am going to have to cut through the decking and see the extent of the damage. The starboard side seems to drain well still and has not gone through to the lower bilges. Seems good and solid too.

7. And as stated in the previous post polished the hull some and worked on oxidation removal. Still don't know how I'm going to get the underside of the boat. I'm not lucky as some of you fine folks. This is a town-home and I'm lucky enough to be able to do it in the driveway without the neighbors going bonkers. Heck thats why I don't want to do any sanding or grinding if I can help it. The dust would end up on all the neighbors cars. So I have no room to lift the boat, nor a tree to do it from etc. etc. etc.

Questions comments greetings of the season?

[ludacrous999b]

Brr... Cold day. Washed the boat some more. Turns out one of those empty bottles of motor oil was empty because it was coating the deck of the boat so todays task was cleaning it out so it was no longer a slip-n-slide in there. Got the rest of the mildew off the inside of the boat too. The section I shined up yesterday on the hull looks great. I can really tell the difference in the better light.

Got a sample of the Durabak yesterday in the mail. Got my foot on it right now to see how long I can stand on it before or if it ever becomes uncomfortable to stand on.

Supposed to be in the 70s all week here starting around tuesday, Gonna try to remove all the screws and trim and get all the oxidation off. Any suggestions on steps? If I remove all the oxidation and let it sit for a few weeks before polishing it will it be okay? I don't see it being 3 weeks but wanna be careful.