Fiberglass and Paint Prep Work

A few years back, when I faired and painted ECHO, I built an outdoor, weather proof work bench to store materials and to mix epoxy.  I will have to post some of those pictures as the amount of work I did, with my brothers help was considerable.  In any event, today I moved this extremely heavy work bench into "The Tent".  "The Tent" is a 22' x 20 ' tent shelter I bought last year.  I am splitting the space with my brother who built the foundation.  I want to use it to do fiberglass repairs on my Sunfishes, and any custom molded pieces I might need for ECHO.  So it made sense to move it into "The Tent" and get it organized and set up to make stuff. 


When Hurricane Irene blasted through here, I took the tent down and recently put it back up.  I'd like to reinforce it some to make it stronger.  It would be nice to have a framed back wall.  In the mean time, the workbench is pretty cool.  It has inside and outside outlets and wire to connect two 20 Amp circuits.  Right now that is not hooked up, but I will add that to my list of things to do  I have a heavy  gauge extension cord going to the tent at the moment.  I will probably remove the other wire and wire in a connector for that input.


Part of the reason the  workbench is so heavy, is I primed it, and painted it, and then as I worked on fairing ECHO's hull, I used up any surplus smoothing out the plywood.  Later I painted it with epoxy primer, and then coat after coat of epoxy paint.  So it really is pretty water proof.

So this all goes to show that for every step forward there are a few steps backwards.  The amount of prep work involved with boats is amazing. 

Next up, I have a new hose for the boat, and I plan to fill up one of the water tanks and start cleaning the other tanks.  I need some stainless steel covers and bolts and tap and dies to attach the new covers.  It will be very nice to have all three water tanks working.

I am planning on purchasing a Techma Silence Plus tall model for the forward head.  It will be using fresh water for flushing. So it will have a solenoid to control the water pump circuit.  So this will be a very clean smelling head, quite and easy to use.  For local sailing this will be the head people will use. 

The aft head will probably use sea water and perhaps be manual just to conserve power.  I do not plan to install an aft head in the immediate future.  I want to haul the boat out and move a couple of sea-cocks to make it easier to operation.  Or in the case of the forward head, I'll be removing the raw water inlet thru-hull and sea-cock.