Thursday December 13: Teak Repair 101

Surgery last Friday went very well. Thursday we had driven to a hotel 15 minutes from the clinic since I was to be at the outpatient desk at 7 am to check in. Definitely better than leaving Marathon at 4 am to make the 3 hour drive to the clinic!

The wait for the surgery etc. was longer than we thought it would be but we were still back to the boat by 5 pm.

It was very nice to be welcomed home with flowers and chocolates - thanks to Sharon on Stevedore. She is always so thoughtful :-)

The work has stopped for me for the time being but Steve continues.

Before we drove north Steve decided the headlights on the cruiser needed attention. Seems that we rarely drive at night down here so old yellowed headlights are not a big deal.   

 But if we were held up with my surgery and ended up needing to come back after dark it would not have been pretty!


So he bought a kit to restore the plastic. 4 steps to polish and clean using the drill. It actually worked great! Now if someone would just wash that car :-)

Talk about that good feeling you get when a dramatic change happens that is so visible!

On to the next job: fix the last remaining damage from Hurricane Irma. There was just one more rather small chunk out of the gunnel teak that just didn't get done last year - definitely very low on the priority list compared to the whole front port railing being gone!

Steve has learned a LOT about how to fix this kind of damage from Randy on Love You More. He and Cindy are still up in the frozen tundras of Ontario but they will be headed this way before too long. Randy will be impressed with how well his student Steve had done :-)

Use jig saw to remove bad piece

Step 1: Use the multi tool saw to remove the damaged area

Fill seam with epoxy and sawdust mixture.

Step 2: Screw the new wood on and fill the seam with a mixture of slow cure epoxy and sawdust.

Sand smooth. Repeat.

Step 3: sand smooth. Fill and repeat until it looks great!!

In the meantime Sharon has been working away with the final sanding of the gunnel teak and Steve has taped the wood off - getting ready for the final step: multiple layers of the cetol finish!!

This will have to wait for the weather to get a bit warmer though.

It's been unseasonably cool for the last few days with strong north-west winds. Of course when I say cool, I use the term loosely as cool means it was in the 60's :-)

Gary, Karen, Linda, Sharon and Stephen

But it was cold enough to force docktails to take place on the flybridge - with a small heater to add a little warmth to cut those north winds!

Steve and Skip.

Sure am happy that the last thing Steve 'made' me construct in the basement of our house were the pieces for the flybridge plastic!







Natalie joined us as well :-)