Winch handles

April 03, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

After-work visit to my small workshop, to renovate old winch handles.

They are originally chromed but after 60 or 80 years the surface developed dents and dints and looked ugly. Previous owner managed to stuck fibreglass and epoxy to parts of these handles so they screamed for renovation.

As I’m not a big fan of chrome anyway I decided to remove it and expose brass underneath. Electro-chemical method is too messy so I used good-old brute force.
After disassembly came angle grinder with 180 followed by 350 grid pad. That took care of the chrome leaving satin brass surface. Areas around blocking pins were tricky to access with the machine without risking grinding these pins so I left them for now. When in use these parts sit inside the winch so it’s not much of an aesthetic problem anyway.

Metal surface after such treatment is not mirror quality, circles and small dents left by the machine are visible. This does not disturb me much as handles will get inevitable scratches anyway during use and after development of brownish-green oxide all will become uniform again.
To give them some final touch I polished all surfaces with polish paste and soft pad.
Screws got some attention too.

Winches are now ready for another 50 years of hard use.

I need to wait with gluing of winch shelves - winter came back and it’s too cold to use epoxy right now.

Winch shelves

March 29, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Short visit to my remote workshop where Glypto sleeps.
Currently I don’t have electricity there so work is limited to daylight visits with hand tools.

After offloading my car with material from Meritaten I decided to carve two shelves for mounting my old winches. As this was rather spontaneous action I forgot to take pencil with me but sharp hand drill made the trick.

Simple hand tools: scraper, file and sandpaper are all what was needed.

These supports will be glued and screwed on the inside of cockpit coaming. Winches are too wide to use existing shelves hence extension is needed.

It came out quite nicely. They are not perfectly rounded and it is clear that they were not turned on lathe nor routed on CNC. My whole boat is hand-carved so this matches the old lady.

Deck prepared

March 28, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Tedious and boring as it may be I actually enjoyed this work. It’s a simple workout - first scraping anti-slip paint with a blade, followed by orbital sander and paper grid 40 & 60. Lot’s of noise but hardly any dust as I run strong hoover connected to the sander.
In gas mask and hearing protection, performing this job on knees - head can be occupied with other thoughts or emptied from any, almost like meditating.

A boat neighbour asked me - or rather stated - that there is much work with wooden boat.
My answer always is: there is much work with any big boat, whatever the material. Depends also on your ambition level: nice things require work and maintenance to stay nice. Ugly things can be neglected, they will anyway not get much better nor worse.

So much about wooden vs GRP boats.

After 5 hours the deck was sanded. I only have 2 places left where securing chains are sitting. I will put my props under Meritaten to remove the chains and finish that part.

Before leaving I took measurements for mahogany shelves I need to add in order to mount my old English winches. I’ll probably leave for now the existing winches but they are on the way out, to free deck passage close to cockpit.

Last thing I did was to put another coat of Owatrol on cabin ceiling and berth boards.
It’s getting nicer inside!

Deck renovation.

March 22, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

I’ve started deck renovation.
First step was to remove all plywood and mahogany bits which were on the boat - material rests from winter projects.
It was quite a pile. To avoid going back & forth on the ladder I figured I will put all material on the deck side and grab it from ground just by standing on a small table beside the boat.

That worked well until last bit of wide plywood. While holding it I lost balance and fell from the table on my back. Worst of all the plywood edge hit Kaika’s freeboard, causing deep dent…

I’ve informed Jim about the accident and we talked about possible repairs when he came to the yard. In the end, after consulting with Börje, it ended up on filling the dent with varnish. Eventually we will glue mahogany plug in this place to close the dent nicely.
Sorry Jim!

Back on the deck I removed all metal fittings and started scraping old, anti-slip paint. The best way was to use blade, followed by orbital sander with 40 or 60 grid paper. Work went good but then I reached front cleat.
I noted already last summer that it is peeling coating from mahogany so it was high time to wood it.

Unfortunately, the cleat is not varnished but covered with epoxy. It makes hell of the job to wood it with scraper. Heat does not work equally well as on varnish so one is left only with sharp blade and brute force.

By the end of the session the cleat was almost entirely wooded. My time run out for today, on my next visit I’ll finish scraping it and will sand smooth the wood.
The plan is to saturate it with Owatrol. Varnish will not last here too long - with mooring lines scrubbing the surface - and epoxy will give me another headache few years from now. With Owatrol I will just oil it few times per season and that should do the trick.

Spring dress

March 21, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Normally, by the end of February I put Meritaten in her spring dress - I cover her up to waterline with foil, to minimise drying of her planks. This winter was so rainy and strange that I skipped that up to now. Spring dry winds are here since this week so it was high time to cover the hull.

To do that I needed to disassemble my mobile workshop. No more major woodworking this winter - we move to spring maintenance schedule.

I primed rusty spots on iron keel - in vicinity of three lead-filled openings which I was working on last year. Epoxy coat which covers iron was distorted here by flames and my pondering so iron has developed rust. Also the rudder - with too much antifouling on it - started to peal paint in few places. Next winter I will have to address it for sure.

I use iron-oxide linseed paint - järnmönja - as a traditional substitute for red lead. Too poisonous to use nowadays red lead was perfect to protect wood from decay. I still use it in small amounts - mostly to protect oak in mast step.

Cleaning after winter woodworking and shutting down my mobile workshop took a good part of day. After that I went to the cabin to work a bit on new table mount. I managed to stabilise it a bit further and adjusted mounting screws so that they are now flush with fittings, to avoid mast which is stepped close to them.

As a last thing I covered ceiling boards on both main berths with Owatrol D2. Initially I intended to leave them silk-textured after Owatrol D1 but changed my mind - glossy finish will lighten up the cabin and bring wood colour back to life.

Otherwise dull planks came back to colour instantly!

Tomorrow I plan to start preparing deck for new coat of paint.