The Painting Continues...

Here are a few more pictures showing the painting progress so far. Last night, Katrina and Jaime helped me with working on sanding/painting the cockpit seats and front hatch and also finishing up some small details on the portholes.

This angle is a better shot than the post I made just recently, showing the contrasting paint on the textured surfaces. The color is a medium gray with a hint of blue to it. You can see the mast tabernacle, the slide hatch and refinished woodwork is in place now. I still need to get the cabin side strip made up and stained. You can also see the bronze portholes lined up on the gunwale, waiting to be installed.

Here is a forward facing view of the starboard side of Udara Tanda, with a closer view of the outlining and woodwork. The grab rails are new, but the hatch guides are the reconditioned originals. I plan on using a sheet of white acrylic to replace the old plywood hatch cover until I can get a 1/2 inch thick piece of smoke-colored Lexan to use instead.

The bow hardware has been replaced or cleaned, polished and reinstalled. I'm still waiting on the 12 foot tubing I ordered to arrive so I can bend it up as a replacement for the original bow pulpit rail section. (I found a site where a CP-16 owner gives pretty good instructions on how to "git 'er done").

From this top-down view, you can see we are starting to make some headway on getting it all together.

We (the girls and I) even installed the nice laminated tiller we got from Sailorman.com. It sure looks sharp.

That's about it for now. I plan to work on finishing the front hatch cover and the cockpit seats tonight, putting the first coat of oyster white paint on them, then finish sanding down the cockpit and painting it with primer.

Several Changes

Hello there.

Things have picked the pace around the house. To begin with, our niece, Jaime has moved in with us for the school year. Things were getting a bit tough back home, so Luann told her sister we could help out.

Here's Jaime talking to her mother on the phone. It's amazing I got this picture because she is so bashful around cameras.

Of course, work continued on the sailboat. I was able to outline and paint most of the textured surface forward of the cockpit, then Katrina helped me install all four of the chainplates and most of the bow fittings. After that, we installed some of the wood pieces to get an idea of where some of the adjoining pieces are spaced.

Now I need to finish the hatch and cockpit seats (and the cockpit itself) to complete the paint work.

Oh, and we picked up a pair of Kawasaki Jetskis this weekend. I don't intend to work on them until I finish up the sailboat. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the second one behind the fence because I got the truck stuck as I was backing up in the front yard and since I can't find the tow chain in the dark, I'll have to unjam it in the morning and drop the second Jetski in the side yard. It figures...

Let The Painting Begin

Progress has been steady on the boat, if a bit slower than I have been hoping for. The whole deck assembly has been sanded down and primed. The smooth sections of the deck have been painted with oyster white and some reassembly work is being done.

I am also proud to announce that Udara Tanda is now legal, I went down to the tag agency and got the title transfer, boat registration and trailer registration done. On the way back home, I stopped by a sign store and had the registration numbers made up in gloss black and the Com-Pac Yacht text made up in gold for the sides near the rear (picture below).

Here is a view of the deck painted with Oyster White and white primer. I need to put down a second coat of oyster white to make sure the coloring is even and smooth, then I will put a second color like the sample piece I did earlier (see 2 pictures below) wherever the rope-like textured surface is on the deck.

Here is the gold Com-Pac Yacht lettering I had made up to replace the original lettering we took off when we stripped down the boat. The text is a little low on the navy blue stripe so it will look balanced when the rubber rub-rail is replaced. You can also see that the hull-to-deck joint just above the blue stripe has been sealed with white 3M 5200 sealant.

For the two-tone paint on the texture of the boat, I custom mixed the color from oyster white, battleship grey and navy blue. It came out as a lighter grey with a slight blue tinge to it.

We're starting to put the transom back together. The rudder mount and bracket were painted navy blue, the jam cleat for the rope that pulls up the rudder was replaced and everthing was mounted on the transom with a healthy dose of 3M 5200 sealant. After the new mahogany and ash tiller handle was mounted, the stern light was replaced with an Attwood unit and the navy blue stripes were carried around across the transom too. The white stripe missing from the navy blue stripe near the top is to reveal the hull number of the boat.

A Surprising Visit To Davis Island

We stopped by the Davis Island Yacht Club to see what it takes to join a yacht club, when we were surprised to see these sailboats damaged by tropical storm Alberto. I didn't think it was that much of a storm, at least by Florida standards, but it apparently was bad enough to upset these vessels.

A Little More Boat Work

I have taken a week off at work after such a tough time in New Mexico and the best way I can think of to relax, is to try to finish up a bunch of work on the boat.

The girls were quite surprised to see this porthole after a ran it across a wire wheel and then polished it with some Brasso. The portholes are made of bronze and normally have a brown patina after weathering like the one on the right. Luann thought I had spray painted the shiney one with gold paint when I came walking in with it in my hand. It takes some time to get them to look this nice, but I like it. If you look closely in the center of the polished porthole, there is a little tab sticking up. This is a ring on the outdoor side of the glass for mounting a bug screen in it. I bought some stainless steel screen from a craft store that should do the job nicely.

I have finally finished the roof of the cabin and the mount for the base of the mast, called the tabernacle. The build-up is pretty close to what the factory mount looks like.

The top-down view shows the symetry of the base. It took about 60 hours of work to get it into shape. As I have mentioned in a previous post, there is a center screw threaded all the way down into the top of the newel post. The four corner screws have been drilled down through the stainless plate above the newel post and tapped with 10 x 24 threads to ensure the tabernacle is solidly tied to the newel post and inner plate. Other work has been to finish removing the rest of the trim and sand or wire wheel the deck down in preparation for painting. I'm hoping I can get the primer on the whole upper side tomorrow. I even removed about 1/2 of the wood trim inside too, and sanded down the original teak wood (what was left of it) and painted it with Cetol teak wood preservative. More pictures to follow.

Work Progress - Day 16

Everything worked out well, we got the motor started with minor issues and the spotter system tested out fine too. Time to pack this thing up and head back home (finally...)

This shows #2 Finish Mill is running with both meters at their proper positions.

Perry and I went up to the local control station to start the motor for the first time. It seemed like a good idea until the motor started turning and blew a bunch of loose cement dust all over us. You can see the cloud above the motor.

After everything was running right, Jesus had the crew put up the Motortronics labels on the equipment we had installed.

A quick look at the display before packing up and heading out.

C-U.

Work Progress - Day 15

Yep, still here in New Mexico.

Got all of the wiring done, including the telemetry, (I knew I would end up doing it). It was a bit tough to do with everybody looking over my shoulder, trying to see how the PLC wiring is supposed to be done. It's a bit of a Rube Goldberg, but it should work as desired. After the guys left for the day, I was able to run up the 120V test power, kick on the exciter unit's 208V power and started tweaking and tuning. Everything looks good, so it looks like tomorrow is commissioning day. Hope everything works out as planned so I can head home Friday. We'll see...

Man, there's a ton of wiring stuffed in this thing. And this is just the PLC computer interface wiring.

Oops, something of a tight fit. I didn't discover this until the main door was closed and I saw a bolt mounted on the door just miss these modules by about half an inch.

Well, the exciter unit is powered up and ready. It's amazing that it has to idle at 260 volts, just so the motor can synchronize.

This picture is from the first starter we completed. The motor is running and the exciter unit is synchronized. You can tell because the voltage dropped down to about 180 volts and the current is now reading about 66 amps, right where its supposed to be.


Here is a New vs. Old comparison of the starters for #2 Finish and #2 Raw mills.

And here is a New vs. Old comparison of #1 Finish and #1 Raw mills. We are supposed to come out in the spring to rebuild the other two units...

Hey Dennis, remember this? I finally got a drive-by shot of the aluminum cactus next to I-40. It has a solar cell and battery for the lights that slowly change color at night. Unfortunately, the thing needs a new battery because it's a bit weak and is hard to see the lights now.

Work Progress - Day 14

Well, another day has come and gone. Since I have finished up the wiring, I have been waiting for the electricians to finish up landing the medium voltage connections and pulling more cables for the telemetry. While they were working on that, I updated the wiring diagrams, had them printed and went over the PLC input/output requirements with Jesus & Orlando (the local PLC guru). After that was done, I uhm... went back to the hotel, since it was 4:30. And now, the pics...

This picture shows the medium voltage (4160) cable spliced together after they come through the Ground Fault CT (GFCT) I put in Saturday.

This shot shows how they curl around in the bottom of the starter before running through a plate in the floor.

How many electricians does it take to put in a ground cable in the back of the starter? It looks like three... there is one more of them just past the pair of dark blue shirts actually doing the work. Just kidding actually. These guys really do get the job done, between breaks and stuff...

Here is the aftermath of the medium voltage cable splicing episode. I still can't figure out what the ladder was for when they were laying on the ground while making the splices. Maybe it was used as a bridge to get over the electrician laying on the ground.

This is the view on the drive back to the hotel. It's been a while since I have been able to drive back and it's still daylight out.

Yep, I-40 is still under construction. It has been torn up since I first started coming out here in April, 2000.

Ahhhh, here's the exit for the hotel. Half a mile to go, and I'll be able to pass out...

G'Night!