What's not to love about a little ship?

[Bold Rascal]

Beautiful work Neil.

I've had a passion for boats since I was a little kid, the closest I ever got to having my own was building models of them until I met a man who had a habit of collecting boats in the extreme western section of PA about 15 years ago.

I ended up purchasing an old (derelict) International 21 day sailer/racer from him for $200.00.

Froze my tale off one cold winter repairing and refinishing her in an old non heated WWII Army staging camp warehouse. Just me, a heat lamp and the worlds biggest ground hog that was residing in there somewhere, lol. Loved that boat.

It's a very rewarding thing to work on your own boat, Getting to sail her as well is just icing on the cake.

[ndutton]

George,

The teak interior had a reddish stain when I got the boat as can be seen in the original picture. With all the holes I had to plug there was quite a bit of sanding to be done to finish them smooth so I went ahead and sanded all the teak with 100 grit, then 220 grit. After that I restained the teak with a reddish stain to get the colors to somewhat match, then applied 2 coats of gloss urethane with an HVLP gravity feed spray gun, no sanding between coats. With varnish you need to sand between coats to provide a good 'tooth' for the next coat to adhere as well as for smoothness. Urethanes on the other hand chemically 'burn in' with subsequent coats. It's not a perfect finish but it looks better than when I started. Guud 'nuff for who it's for!

The additional dinette seat is simply 2 pieces of birch plywood with a radiussed alder corner post (see pics). I needed to paint the interior fiberglass (many, many more holes repaired) so I painted the seat cabinet at the same time. The really tricky part of the dinette modification is supporting the table with a single leg without the benefit of attachment to the main bulkhead. The hardware needs to be robust.

The modification provides more seating as well as some side benefits.

[gclayton]

Neil

I have wondered why everyone finishes their interior with varnish and not polly. Polly in strong, high gloss and easier to apply. Did you find any downside to using it vs. varnish? What type of paint did you use on the interior?

Very nice.
George

[ndutton]

Another of urethane's superior properties is its hardness. Varnish never gets hard, stays rubbery. We learned this the hard way at Islander Yachts. There was an era of high quality interior appointments, custom upholstery and custom exterior colors at Islander, like around '76 - '77. Among the interior features were varnished oak countertops rather than Formica. What a huge mistake. Those counters were trashed within months. However, I don't think varnish can be beat for exterior brightwork and I love the tradition it brings. I used to prefer McClosky's Man-o-War varnish just because of the cool can it came in. There's way better varnish but no better can.

Here's a neat trick for varnish: mix a capful of Japan Drier (aka cobalt drier) in a quart of varnish and it will tack off within an hour. The drier acts like a catalyst in oil based paints.

My paint of choice for the interior fiberglass was plain old Rustoleum gloss white. What they call gloss is really closer to satin. Rustoleum is one of the last honest high solids oil based paints, readily available and reasonably priced. It's durable, washable and easily touched up. I applied it with an HVLP gravity feed spray gun (did I say that already?). I would never use it on the exterior but for interior use it has been fine.

[ILikeRust]

Some absolutely excellent information about paints here at the Wooden Boat forum.

[sleonhard]

I'm into my third year working on this boat, here are a few shots of the direction I have been going in. Because of the roughness of the surface I used a filler to smooth the surface out and contact cemented a woven grass cloth to the interiour and varnished it. Then put 2 layers of plastic bubble insulation that was covered with a rigid black plastic material for the side panels. I have removed the cushions and am in the process of replacing them with antique bankers chairs, that I will be refinishing, as a live aboard I wanted to have an actual chair to sit in. The white material behind the chairs is a template that I will use to cut material to make another storage area.

and of course the project list is endless.... at least until sailing season arrives

Capt'n Lenny

[ndutton]

That rough coating was actually stipple paint, Jensen's version of acoustical ceilings not for acoustic properties but instead to hide a multitude of sins. It was a thick paint about the consistency of pancake batter applied with a stipple roller, common in their 29 and smaller boats.

[sleonhard]

probably looked nice...40 years ago

[ndutton]

probably looked nice...40 years ago

No, not really in my opinion and I saw them fresh.

[sastanley]

Hahaha...yeah..I've come to the conclusion that many ideas were not good ones, even right out of the box.

[The Garbone]

Ok, now you folks have my attention. How exactly did you attach the pedistal base to the sole? My boat has a rubbery liner I actually like, but holes would be ok.

Lenny, it looks like your table swivels. Is that the case?

We are not the bigrest fans of the stock table and it looks and would link the additional seating as well.

[HalcyonS]

Some absolutely excellent information about paints here at the Wooden Boat forum.

useful link, thanks
S

[ndutton]

Ok, now you folks have my attention. How exactly did you attach the pedestal base to the sole? My boat has a rubbery liner I actually like, but holes would be ok.

I was rereading the thread and noticed the question was not answered. To whom was the question directed??

[The Garbone]

Either one of you kind gentlemen. Pedestal table and additional seating is on our long term list. Ahead of water heater and water maker.

[ndutton]

I made my table mounting system from two generic light pole bases of cast aluminum and a length of heavy wall aluminum tube (3½"). To my good fortune my electrical parts wholesaler had the bases on a clearance table and I bought the tube on ebay. The hand screws I used to tighten the tube in the bases (not visible in the picture because they're black and facing toward the lens) came from McMaster-Carr. The upper base under the table is through bolted with ¼-20 machine screws while the lower base at the cabin sole is fastened with eight #14 sheet metal screws. The table has a little movement due to flex of the fiberglass cabin sole.