Lots of stuff has been going on with the boat. One of the reasons I moved it to Deale, MD back in 2009 was because the marina was much closer to the Boatamalan painter. Now that I have to pack up and go by April, I need to get the painter moving on spraying the ICA top coat in the interior. Since the V-berth is the closest to being done, that’s where we started.
An ugly panel joint needs covering
Lotsa push sticks clamping a strip of mahogany over the joint
When the epoxy cured, the painter went nuts with the sander
Heavy coats of ICA base coat the new wood
That’s eight coats of ICA base in total.
I had to get the mahogany door jambs made before we spray the top coat
This will be a slider door here. The mahogany stick I’m working with here will have a slot cut out of it for the door edge to slide into.
Fit. Cut. Fit. Cut. Route. Fit. Miter cut. Fit. Repeat.
The doorjamb pieces and last mahogany panel trim piece is glued and clamped in place
Wait for the epoxy to cure, then bust out the sanders again
We can’t apply epoxy once the top coat goes on. Everything is fair game when working with base coat, but all of the woodwork has to be done before the top coat goes on.
Next day, lots of sanding
Mirka Abranet is great stuff. Very durable sandpaper
Time to clean up and get ready to spray
Notice the 12″ fume extractor exhaust hose coming in through the hatch opening? Normally, these fume extractors are set up to push air through the hose. That puffs the hose up, maximizing its diameter and the amount of air that can go through it with the least resistance. But there was no way I was going to put the big fan motor housing anywhere near the beautiful Awlgrip paintjob. So, I reversed the fan and put it outside. It sucks fumes from this space, narrowing the hose down to ~10″ along its length before the fumes go through the fan and get pushed into the filter box outside. Even with it reversed, it moves plenty of air out of the space. This is important, since you don’t want the spray filling up the space so the painter can’t see.
ICA top coat and catalyst
It’s spray time! ICA is smelly stuff, so once the exhaust fan is running, I packed up and went home. Next day, I came back to see how it looked.
Um…Houston…we have a problem
The white stuff you see in the pic above is overspray. You can’t see it with the naked eye, but the camera flash catches it very well. What I experienced in real life was seeing this absolutely gorgeous clear coated satin mahogany. But then I put my hand on it and it felt like 120 grit sandpaper. The last place the painter sprayed is as smooth as glass. Everywhere else is oversprayed.
The painter blamed it on the complex, tight spaces. He said the exhaust fan worked great. But he’d finish spraying the bulkhead, then move on to the closet walls. Then climb up on the bed and do the curved walls. Then climb down to finish off the desk-like structure at the entrance to the room. But the sprayed ICA was kicking off just enough before he could finish a lap that the overspray from the last area wasn’t melting in with the ICA sprayed initially. It’s a gorgeous nasty mess.
So…we needed to sand again, tape everything off again, buy more ICA, and spray…again.
Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Top Coating the V-berth II
1969chriscraftroamer46 