NautaBytes

The Table on my Catalina 30 was in Great shape, being that it was only 36 years old.  Only a couple of small chips in all that time.  The problem was.... It was UGLY, and dark.   I am sure that in it's heyday, the simulated wood grain Formica was all the rage, but Today, not so much.  So, time for a face lift.  Being that the existing Formica was WELL ADHERED to the Particle Board, I figured that I could apply the new Formica over the existing, provided I prepared it properly.   So,  The first thing I had to do was deal with the chips so I could get a level surface to put the new Formica on.  So I just squared out the chipped areas, then cut a patch from some scrap Formica and glued it in. The tools needed for Prepping the table.  Notice I have already applied a patch on the right. The Offending chip Use a straightedge and a Stanley Knife to score the Formica . Next, use a Chisel to go all the w...

Here is a FREE,  simple, and virtually seamless way to fix damaged teak.  This is a process known as "Dutching-In", according to my friend Robert Salnick at windborne in puget sound . Anyway, I had this Damaged Fiddle Rail on the Table on my Catalina 30.  It isn't surprising, being that the table is made of particle board and weighs about a million pounds.  But rather than taking the time to fix it properly, the Previous Owner (PO) decided to glue some of it back together using some sort of foamy glue, and to fill in the rather large voids with that "Rock Hard" stuff you can buy at the hardware store... it is a powder that you mix with water and then mold it into place and let it dry, which would be fine if you were going to paint it..... it looked awful on the varnished teak. So the first thing to do was to clean out all of that crap, and then re-split the fiddle and re-glue the split with some proper wood glue... I used Gorilla Glue due to its water resis...

OK, so the boat is out of the water, and time is ticking down.  I have to finish everything I want to do in the smallest amount of time possible...Time on the Hard is money!  Fortunately, I had only a few things that I needed to do.  The rest would be done by the boatyard.    I came back on Friday, and spent most of the day cleaning the bilge.  I wanted to put a coat or two of BilgeCoat in there, but it had to be cleaned first!  As it turned out, Friday was a Gorgeous day... unlike Thursday with the high winds and rolly seas... here is a panoramic pic from the deck of my boat...  It is also odd to look forward on your boat and see it almost overhanging a road....  they Started the buffing job, I gotta say I was pretty impressed with the work that they were doing.  I stopped to take the following Pic, as it shows the before and after pretty well!  Then I started work on Painting the Bilge on Saturday.  I got the...