We ripped into the carbon fiber mast of this boat this weekend and this turned out to be a little bit more of a project that I had anticipated, but the results are coming out better that I had anticipated as well.

My arms a real sore from the sanding - every inch of this 32 foot mast was hand sanded!

Here are a few before and during photos, I'll have some afters once I figure what paint application I want to use:

Before:









During:

Looks like letting my cousin the orthopedic surgeon live with me during his residency paid off, ever see a mast in traction?













Edited by JohnES on Jan 23, 2011 - 07:58 PM.

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John Schwartz
Ventura, CA
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got me some maintenace action this weekend also..



25 trips to the beach will sand off paint, gelcoat, and glass! never fear, west system is here...and a few ice colds to help process! new bearings for the trailor also...



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bill harris
hattiesburg, mississippi
prindle 16- "BLUE RIBBON"
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Well that's just peachy, YOU THINK!....got snowed in and am still digging out, sheesh! Don't ya just luv winter......

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TurboHobo
H14T
H16
P18
G-Cat 5.0
P16
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learned my lesson last year...don't delay shipyard mode.

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got snowed in and am still digging out

now that will delay shipyard mode. last year i crammed in hull repairs/paint, making new dolphin striker, rudder upgrades, sail repair, and a host of misc. stuff into 2 weeks before the first race. laced up the tramp and sailed her just 3 days after paint. wished i would have let the paint cure at least a week before assembly. this year i have 2 more passes on the keels(resin top coat, sand and touch up paint) and mayby she can sit for a month before i wax the crap out of it and assemble this time. last year was a bit rough with the wifes brain cancer coming back with a vengance but she toughed out surgery/chemo and kicked its azz and ended up sailing a bunch later that summer...this year has been a piece of cake compared last at this time.

we get winter here...it will freeze, snow/sleet/ice ocassionaly but like this past weekend, you will get a few days in a row of sunny 70 degree awesomness fit for glass work. if things work out, i hope to get wet before easter. you can sail here april through november w/out any wet suit or long sleeves for that matter. the gulf, she is warm, and the oyster beds are open and producing! bp, katrina, how many more catastrophies are in store? stay tuned...

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bill harris
hattiesburg, mississippi
prindle 16- "BLUE RIBBON"
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The painting has started. The material I had selected for the job is Interlux Perfection 2 part Polyurethane. I was going to go with the Interlux Britesides 1 part Teflon enamel marine paint; however, for the few extra bucks I thought I would try my had at working with this stuff.

This pix first coat of primer. It was hand brushed using 3" foam brush and cam out pretty good. there are a few splots, but then again there is sand paper too.



Will be sanding it out tonight as doing the second primer in the morning.

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John Schwartz
Ventura, CA
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Wow, you guy's have some pretty intense projects.

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Tyler holmes
Panama city, FL

Boat whore
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TylerH

Wow, you guy's have some pretty intense projects.

Actually the sanding was quite therapeutic and it was good the brush up (pun) with the West Systems. Glad to see that stuff that has been sitting in my shed is still good.

I guess one of the pit falls of a carbon fiber mast; besides the cost to replace it, is you can let it go to where it starts to ware away at the fibers and epoxy substrate that protect the carbon lay up, and we were getting close to that point. All of that has been built back up and all of the dings have been cleaned up as well.

Do have a little bit of a delay. I was hoping to put the second primer on this morning and the first finish coat tomorrow; however, this stuff is a tough as nails and and sanding out some of the "splots" is a little harder. Gong to have to be real careful with the additional coats.

Looks like the finish won't be going on until next weekend.

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John Schwartz
Ventura, CA
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keels ready for paint.



keels painted...beer drank...



might as well tear the criss craft apart too...this should only take a minute...

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bill harris
hattiesburg, mississippi
prindle 16- "BLUE RIBBON"
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Boudicca in winter mode

coastrat

keels ready for paint.

What paint did you use?

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John Schwartz
Ventura, CA
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doesn't need a primer for glass/gelcoat. ~40$ per qt.

sprayed 2 coats last year and had 1/2qt left over.

bought 15$ qt. reducer also.

touched up keels with a brush, spit coat/top coat.

loved the paint, it's a new product, we'll see how it holds up.

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bill harris
hattiesburg, mississippi
prindle 16- "BLUE RIBBON"
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Did you spray it with a HVLP system? Wish I could do that, but where I live they would have the hazmat brigade showing up in a New York second no matter how well I draped everything. Caught a bunch of @##$%@#%$ when I did some gel-coat while back

Looks like that stuff is akin to the Interlux Bitesides product which is good stuff. For this project I went with a two part polyurethane and what a learning curve. I started to put it on thick and it ran hard, it started to "kick off" so all I could do is let harden and sand it down - hence the light areas where you can see the primer coming through.

This after a 220 sanding for the ridges from the runs and a 400 for smoothing, and it still shines.



Hope to put the second coat on later this week.

Is that an 18 or a 16 you have? Owned three 18, a 16 and two 18-2's - great boats



Edited by JohnES on Jan 31, 2011 - 10:09 PM.

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John Schwartz
Ventura, CA
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i used the trusty gravity feed gun @ 35 psi...did great! this is a new product that is a hybrid resin blend. it touched up pretty good with just a brush. i regreted not putting more fresh glass on the keels last year, i just patched the deep spots and went with it. this time i did it right but if i hit the beach another 25 times or so this season i expect to work on the keels every offseason...the beach is one big 80 grit sander and is relentless.

2 part products can be tricky when roll/tip applied, the back and forth motion of the roller in a shallow tray speeds up evaporation and can bring on an early set time shortening the pot life of the paint. hell, even spraying can sag/run the crap out of it. one good thing about living in mississippi(americas last frontier), is the complete lack of big government telling you what you can and can't do(OSHA,EPA) so my poor neighbors just suck it up literally. i live in the county where you can build a home with NO CODES OR INSPECTIONS any way you want...wild wild west style. now in the city of hattiesburg it's a little different, they require permits, standard building codes, inspections, and they even can make you clean up your funky yard!

i grew up a total hobie guy, 14,16, and 18 and thought prindles were goofy looking. my h16 got trashed by katrina(boat was 1.5 miles off of the beach in bay st. louis!) and was trying to put together another h16 when a friend sold me the prindle 16. i love my prindle, plan on keeping it. it's so easy to deal with and is rugged.

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bill harris
hattiesburg, mississippi
prindle 16- "BLUE RIBBON"
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Good job Skipper, we don't have to clean up our yards in Petal either, hell, we don't have to clean up the insides of our houses in Petal

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Hank, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, P16 - "Sideways"
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hell, we don't have to clean up the insides of our houses in Petal

i'm sure you and the boy take turns scrubbing toilets around there right after you do laundry and scrub baseboards and sweep and mop and wash dishes and...

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bill harris
hattiesburg, mississippi
prindle 16- "BLUE RIBBON"
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And dusting my new kick butt vintage home stereo thanks to a one Mr. Coastrat. Thanks again Skipper, I just recently added a pair of additional pioneer speakers with 15" woofers. You may soon see my neighboors on the pulse of the pinebelt in cuffs for murdering me; they're more of your country music fan and I don't play no stinking country, unless you count Willie. I going shoping for hearing aids next week, should you need a pair, let me know. Over

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Hank, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, P16 - "Sideways"
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Decades ago I used to have speakers big enough to use as tables at parties. I took a course in college on the "science of sound".
That was one of the most useful courses I ever took. After that I went to the Bose 901s, and the tiny Acoustimass system, with the subwoofer you can hide anywhere in the room.
Dr. Bose is an MIT Grad, he really understood the physics behind sound, no more humongous speakers for me. People still laugh at the tiny AM5 speaker modules, & claim you can't get bass out of small speakers...until I crank them up. They are usually the same people who think 200 watts RMS must be twice as loud as a 100 watt system, or that a system should be rated at .015% total harmonic distortion, & vinyl is better than digital MP3. Remember when turntables claimed 33 1/3 RPM, digital control, with no greater than 1/100 of an RPM divergence? Unfortunately our ears, & speakers are still analog systems, & we cannot decipher even a full RPM error...sober, might make an interesting lab whilst under the influence.

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Hobie 18 Magnum
Dart 15
Mystere 6.0XL Sold Was a handful solo
Nacra 5.7
Nacra 5.0
Bombardier Invitation (Now officially DEAD)
Various other Dock cluttering WaterCrap
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i started collecting antique/vintage radios/stereos as a teenager and it took on a life of its own. you get a kind of gravitational pull and next thing you know you have a house full. it runs the gammit from late 20's rca's to late 80's harmon kardins, table tops to floor models, transistors to the first boom boxes. even some 8 tracks in the mix. my favorite is the 1974 pioneer qx 8000 quadraphonic, 158 tube watts of rock and roll bliss! the new stuff sounds great too, but there is something nostalgic about those real wood cabinets buit by craftsmen, furniture quality,not particle board/plastic things cranked out in china. like old cars/guitars, it connects us to our past when things were built by hand.

when it comes to guitar amplifiers, hands down winner for me is the tube amp...for my style of music, you can't touch the tone and warmth of an old fender dual showman or fender twin. i do have the guilty pleasure of playing through the modern hartke aluminum cone speaker cabinets, which i wouldn't trade for anything. never understood why bose never got into making guitar amplifiers, seemed like it was right up there ally.

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bill harris
hattiesburg, mississippi
prindle 16- "BLUE RIBBON"
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Mr. Coastrat, after you donated the wonderful pioneer amp, my setup was too large for the existing space I was keeping my tuner and turntable on, so I found a console stereo for $50 to place the vintage set on top of. I cleaned up the console, plugged it in and it worked on and off;when it did work, it sounded just fine. Now that is a piece of funiture. Next time you're over, remind me to crack up the old standup phonograph, it's pretty amazing: a crank, a spring, a turntable, thick platters, wood, and maybe 70 dB.

And yeah, the tube amp with the honking aluminum cones, hence the name: Bass Pickle.

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Hank, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, P16 - "Sideways"
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Well the mast is done, this weekend we'll be putting the boat back together and hopefully getting it on the water for its first sail.







Of all the boat I have owned over the past 30 years, I will have to say this is probably the most extensive rebuild I have ever done on one of these. But then the other I did get a compliment asking, "is that a new boat?"

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John Schwartz
Ventura, CA
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mast looks great! i'd let it cure for a week or so before being put into service, cool weather slows cure time. now you have your arms pumped up from sanding so it's a good time to start rubbing out those hulls!



got the keels touched up, sanded, and waxed 2 coats...on to the next step...now it just needs to warm up a bit!





Edited by coastrat on Feb 10, 2011 - 09:44 PM.

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bill harris
hattiesburg, mississippi
prindle 16- "BLUE RIBBON"
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We have been having some awesome weather here, 65 - 70 and bright sun. The mast has been sitting in the back yard for the past week curing and will be sitting at the storage yard for another week to cure as well - need to get some other stuff taken care of this weekend so I won't be getting it back together as planned.

Hulls are already done, all that is left is to step the mast and off we go.



Edited by JohnES on Feb 11, 2011 - 09:48 AM.

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John Schwartz
Ventura, CA
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