Restoration Continues

MAYAN needed a bit of TLC when we bought her.  While her hull and deck are sound and wonderfully watertight, her exterior varnish needed a bit of work to bring it up to the level we prefer. Now, after a number of weeks of stripping and varnishing, things are looking up.  Only one more pin rail to go and we're done with the restoration phase and will start moving on to some improvements we want to make.

For those who don't work with varnish much, here's what's done to each piece:
1) Strip all old varnish off with a heat gun and edge scraper
2) Hard-block sand with 100 grit to bring the wood flat
3) Hard-block sand with 180 to smooth
4) Hard-block sand with 220 to smooth
5) Hand sand with the various grits on all the bits that couldn't be reached with the block
6) Two coats of sealer, sanding with 220 grit after the second coat
7) Six coats of varnish, sanding between coats with 220 grit

The picture on the left shows the four square hatches that lie above the forward guest cabin, the owner's cabin, the head and the galley.  It's wonderful to have this amount of ventilation when out cruising and it's great fun to watch the water slide over the port hole in the hatch when sailing upwind in a strong breeze.

DavidC developed an interesting way of holding these hatches open.  The hatch has "normal" right handed threads on a bronze swivel, the interior edge of the hatch has a "backwards" left handed thread on the inside lip.  There are matched pairs of these on the aft and forward edges of the hatches and a set of bronze bars that are threaded appropriately of various lengths.  One simply threads a turn or two into the hatch, pushes the rod upward and threads a turn or two more into the lower socket.  The hatch is then held open firmly and is secure from moving up or down.  Each is hinged on both forward and aft edges so they can be positioned to either force air into the boat or exhaust it.


In the previous post about MAYAN's non-Alden interior we talked a bit about what we were going to change.  After a lot of demolition of existing bits, below is the first piece of new wood to start going back in.  This is the seat back for the port side settee in the main saloon, just outboard of the table.  It also serves as the inboard side of the pilot berth.  It is one inch thick Honduras mahogany, from the forest where MAYAN was built.  The wood is terribly hard to get, but fortunately Wayne Ettel has a lovely supply of decades old Mahogany in his shop.  The picture to the right is of the piece after step six above, the second coat of sealer.  Next week it gets four or five coats of varnish before being installed and will receive a couple more coats after it is in place aboard MAYAN.

One plank finished - dozens to go....