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Permalink Reply by David Rogers on July 14, 2012 at 9:40pm

This is my boat after I bought her last fall.  I had done a little work at this point, but not much.  I don't take too many pics, but I have a few.  The boat was pretty sound, but the previous owner had done a "restoration" which involved coating everything with interior poly and automotive undercoating.  There was also crudely applied bathtub caulk spooged into every crack.  I scraped away a bunch of failing finish and secured her for the winter.

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Permalink Reply by David Rogers on July 14, 2012 at 10:34pm

Here are a few more pics of the ongoing restoration.  I decided to focus on the outside of the boat first.  I finished scraping and sanding the sides, rubrails, and chine caps.  My first thought was to clean the wood up and saturate it with epoxy then varnish.  I spent some time over at AJ DeRosas place with the boat and some PBR last fall.  AJ was very helpful with info about finishing options and the traditional way of doing things.  I thought about it over the winter and decided that I wanted to go paint on the outside. I didn't love the look of the grain of the fir and wanted less maintenence as opposed to clear finish.  I also got a great deal on some clearance paint from my paint supplier.  I was able to trade a pair of Volkl Explosives that I aquired from a painting client for a gallon of Siliconzed Alkyd paint in neutral base.  This paticular paint is made for industrial use on farm equipment, drilling rigs, and other hard applications.  I had planned on using epoxy as a primer to bind the wood a bit, but decided on a product called Aluthane.  Aluthane is a moisture cured polyureathane which is recomended for poorly prepared substrates.  I have no pictures of this part of the work, but the Aluthane went down great.  It really went deep and sealed the wood very well.  I did two coats and then switched to the paint.  Two coats of paint and I was ready to tackle the bottom.

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Permalink Reply by David Rogers on July 14, 2012 at 10:49pm

I applied a coat of unthickened epoxy to the bottom.  when that had hardened, I squeegied a coat of thickened epoxy into all the little checks and dings.  This picture was taken during this step.  After sanding this down, I applied two coats of an epoxy graphite to the bottom, chine caps, stem, and rub rails.  All steps were done within 48 hours so that the epoxy could bond to itself chemically while still "green".

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Permalink Reply by Vance Wonser on July 15, 2012 at 9:28am

Thanks for the inspiration David!!!

That looks to be in about the same condition as the 16' Don Hill I picked up about a month ago.  You are doing a beautiful job.  Keep up the report & the pics!  I hope to get to work on mine soon, but it will probably not happen till winter.

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