Sat Jul 17 2021
Thinking about the past few days as well as other minor repair we’ve done in the past 3 years or so, there are tools and materials that keep coming in handy, and may yet save our bacon in this particular misadventure. For the most part I’m a fan of AC powered tools. In our kit is a small jigsaw and what some folks call a fine tool. That’s a vibrating thing on which one can install sanding attachments or variously shaped cutting blades. I’ve used that fine tool to cut clean straight lines in fiberglass panels, round holes for 8” inspection plates on the top of our gray water tank spaces, sanded tight corners, you name it.
For battery powered tools we’ve got a 18 volt drill/screwdriver kit that also came with an articulating head work light. This is the third I’ve owned in the past 20 years - remodeled a house with one of them. I use the light or the drill at least once a week. When you live on a boat there are always repair projects or “home improvement” ideas, or else someone on another boat needs help with something, We help each other out here.
I wish I had a battery operated grinder. An AC powered orbital sander with a soft sanding disk would be great too. Recently a battery operated sawzall would have been awfully handy, but it would have had to be waterproof.
It’s important to stock a good variety of blades and sand paper for everything.
Materials are also very important. Obviously we can’t carry around a 4’x8’ sheet of 1/2” plywood, but we can store smaller cutoffs and we do. We also have large cutoffs of starboard, both 1/4” and 1/2” sheet sizes. Several years ago we got clipped by a vessel dragging through the anchorage, and it took out a side hatch. Had we not been able to manufacture a watertight hatch cover we wouldn’t have been able to cross the Sea of Cortez to get to our home marina. We just happened to have a 1/2” thick scrap of starboard in the hold, big enough to do the job. We even had a roll of closed cell foam about 1/4” thick by 1” wide to improve a helm seat refrigeration seal, and that came in handy to make that makeshift hatch completely water tight. The boat that hit us had some bits of teak lumber; we manufactured brackets with those to hold the new hatch cover in place.
Because we’re an American boat we tend towards common, readily available hardware. While in San Diego we found a marine salvage business down by the industrial shipyards that sold stainless hardware by the pound. I purchased a large selection of bolt lengths, lock washers, fender washers, nylock nuts and more, all 1/4” diameter x 20 threads per inch. Ace Hardware has plenty of that too, they just want a lot more $$ for them. There are projects all over the boat that are built too strong, but that’s because the hardware was in hand. Best part is that a 7/16” wrench and ratchet set is all I need for lots of jobs.
Fiberglass repair and project supplies are critical. When we hit the hard thing I had a single 1 liter kit of West Systems epoxy with slow hardener. I wish I’d had 2 kits. I also had maybe 30 meters of 3” wide fiberglass cloth and a couple square meters of cloth, both aircraft grade material purchased from Aircraft Spruce. Working with West Systems means wearing a vapor mask; we have 2 on board left over from our last bottom job at Rocky Point. Boxes of disposable nitrile gloves - the blue ones from Harbor Freight are an absolute must. Isopropyl alcohol to use as a cleaning solvent that will flash off and dry work areas is also good; I suppose other more toxic solvents would also work.
To make patterns for complex shapes such as a backup flood bulkhead I used up almost all of Isabel’s flexible cutting boards. They’re cheap and they are easy to cut. Once I had a pattern made then cutting the plywood to the correct shape was a snap.
Best part? When I do a project like that, Isabel smiles and says “you’re sooooooo clever”. That makes it all worth it.
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