I went down to Urbanna the other day to wrap up the construction part of the project. There are still a few bits and pieces to finish but we should be good to go sailing.

I had to leave in a hurry last time I was there as my friend who was helping had to be back in town for a family commitment so the place was a bit of a disaster area. the mini 2.5 gallon Shop Vac that I bought has been in valuable for clean up and whilst I cannot keep it on the boat due to storage issues its easy to pack into the car for transport.

An inspection of the shower pan showed a few voids in the ‘glass that need to be filled plus two of the corners needed building up. Also I needed to smoth out the edges for cosmetic reasons.

Back to the epoxy then a good clean!

After the resin had set I gave it a good “roughing up” with some 80 grit on the palm sander, a wipe down with acetone, then a good coat of exterior grade Kilz. On the exterior of Santosha I use marine products to finish the wood but below I have found that regular paint etc. from Lowes works just fine. However i am interested to see how the paint will work out over epoxy, something that I have little experience with. The Kilz sets up fast so I was able to get a couple of coats of white exterior semi-gloss on the shower floor alternating painting and working on the trim.

In-between coats I worked on replacing the teak veneer outside the head door.

We managed to save it by cutting very carefully as we removed the rotten wood and we found a lot of fiberglass filler had been used to fill the voids left during construction as the plywood cabin sole conformed to the curve of the hull.

To get the veneer to fit flush with the remaining teak I ended out the “high points” of remaining filler, mixed up a big batch of thickened epoxy, and set the piece in place. To hold it at the right level holes were drilled and scows were run to pull the edged flush.

After the epoxy had set I used stainable wood filler to fill the cracks and screw holes and stained it to match the old floor. I replaced all the old trim, some of which required modification and gave the cabin a really good clean as sawdust tends to get everywhere and re-oiled the rest of the floor.

Next week a shakedown sail!