Sunday, September 15, 2013

Loose bulkhead

I had noticed that the aft bulkhead in the starboard side was "glassed in" as opposed to being bolted the the hull like all the other bulkheads. Normally all bulkheads in the Ballad are bolted to in place. The are only two places Albin would normally glass in plywood (both around the water tank). Something must have gone wrong while outfitting hull #332. This might not be anything to be alarmed by but the bulkhead was loose and I was able to remove it without using force. The fiberglass on the bulkhead didn't adhere to the hull. Good thing that didn't happen while at sea in bad weather!

As I'm going to "refurbish" the old bulkheads to avoid spending money on marine grade plywood I needed to remove the fiberglass from the bulkhead. If only marine grade plywood wasn't so outrageously expensive in Denmark *sigh*.

Bulkhead gone!

Bulkhead with fiberglass
Removed the fiberglass with an angle grinder
Almost done sanding

2 comments:

  1. Your pictures look so familiar! I'm having "deja-vu" just looking through them. Take heart: the light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer with each hour's work.
    Peter.

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  2. Thanks, Peter. I needed a bit of a moral booster :-) I had hoped to "test fit" the last of the plywood yesterday. Instead I ended up using the time trying to make the different pieces of the gaily fit together. I would very much like to have all the plywood ready for staining and varnish before the winter sets in. With any luck I will be able to do a post with some real progress next week.

    Your site (www.sintacha.com) is a continuing source of inspiration and a great moral booster. If only my Ballad ends up looking half as good as yours I will be very pleased :-)

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