Boy does Evenstar’s bottom look right nekkid about now. The soda blasting is done and she’s pretty stripped. Though, as always, it wasn’t 100% smooth. A couple of gotchas on this job that we are sorting out.
The first is the whole “layer of fine white crap on every flat surface inside the boat” problem. I am hoping it is just soda, and not a fine layer of soda and toxic paint dust. But apparently the cotton plug the soda blasters put in the speedometer through hull wasn’t enough. I don’t think they were aware that it was open to the air since I pulled the speedo. Fortunately almost every floor panel, ceiling panel, closet door and storage space on half the boat was open so we were able to coat all over deep in the boat, not just the surfaces. I’m thinking there were some serious communication issues between the soda blasting contractor, the yard, and myself.
The second issue is one of barrier coating. Or rather the presence of an “epoxy primer” which according to the fellow from Hallberg-Rassy I finally got an answer from is the barrier coat they apply at the factory. Of course the whole reason we were soda blasting was to remove the lousy paint and get the boat clear for an eventual barrier coating since we didn’t realize there was one. As it turns out there was, albeit one not quite as tough as one might expect since it came off with soda blasting. Hallberg-Rassy strongly recommends you barrier coat, and since we had one we really are put in the position where we should put it back again. Oh joy, we’d hoped to not spend that money for a little while. Oh, and we need to sand the remnants of the old barrier off before we re-coat; I’m hoping the bottom sanding fairies hit that for me one night while they are visiting boats in the yard but I’m not holding my breath.
Third issue…holes. Little ones, lots of them. They really are minor – probably caused by some air bubbles trapped between the resin and the gelcoat in the original hull layup. They shouldn’t have been there, but stuff happens. These will need to be filled. They an be filled with an epoxy filler and a putty knife. Hopefully if we can find a barrier coat which is thick and gooey enough we can just push that in and get a full, saving a step.
We’re hoping to find a way to barrier coat that takes only two coats instead of six. That’s one of the reasons for the high expense – six coats of paint applied, with three or more cans of barrier coat at over $200/gallon adds up. With any luck and a little help from Interlux we’ve hit on a way to get the same coverage for two coats. We’ll see.
