Dawn Raid on Herbie nearly goes well

 The battle to restore Herbie's paintwork goes on despite entirely unsuitable weather.  Last week's  heatwave would have fried the paint as soon as it touched the metal I would think. So when I noticed a temporary drop in the forecast temperature for this Monday I knew what I should do.  Arriving at the boat on Sunday evening, I planned a sneak dawn raid on the rear deck and cant paintwork on the next morning. Now when I say 'dawn' you have to take that in context, because since I retired some 20(!!!) years ago, my idea of dawn has little to do with sun up.  Anyhow I was up, breakfasted and ready to paint by 0815.

Conditions were not ideal because of a stiff and gusty breeze blowing across the marina, so much so that the boat had been rocking in the night.  So I was somewhat apprehensive. On previous occasions I had experience wind blowing the paint off the brush and I didn't really want the rear deck looking like a Jackson Pollock painting, so i was carefull not to load the brush to heavily. First I did the red cants and the Hempel paint being fairly glutinous (in fact it was dragging a bit), that went ok. Then it was the turn of the much more fluid Craftmaster Graphite Grey for the actual deck. It really is the most fantastic paint to work with as it flows beautifully and covers really well but it is pretty sloppy. Dodging the gusts of wind I quickly got the job done and was feeling pretty pleased with myself when I turned back to see that the pesky breeze had deposited a three inch wodge of hairy gritty gunge on the wet paint. Doh! 

Having learned from the Master (Phil Speight) I knew that the thing to do was not to try to attend to it while the paint was wet, so I just left it for another day.  I might have gone on to repeat the exercise on the foredeck but as the boat's bow is tucked into the reeeds which were waving about like a Hawaiian maidens grass skirt I decided to call it a day. So, in case of invasion by the cats from the boat next door  I just stood guard over the rear deck until the paint was touch dry and headed home (via a nice brunch at Cropredy's splendid little Mulberry Cafe).  Not a bad morning really.

Before:

After:

Lots more to do of course but it's another bite out of the elephant.

I ride an old paint. From Hotlips to Hempel

 Our son Richard would be quite pleased if a called him a nutter. He certainly has a weird brain. One thing he sometimes tells us about is coincidences betwwen something he has been thinking and something that happens shortly after, generally something totally bizzare.  

Well Richard's condition must be contageous, because we met up with him recently and now I've got it.  It all started with the death announced this week of the actress Loretta Swit who older readers might remember at Major Margaret Houlihan aka Hotlips in the TV series MASH.  Thinking about that brought about an earworm repeating in my brain

I ride an old paint

I lead an old Dan

I'm goin' to Montana

To throw the hoolihan

It's an old (100 years plus) cowboy song. I got it from Loudon Wainwright III, but it's been recorded by Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash and many others.  An 'old paint' is apparently a type of spotted horse, specifically a pinto (not a lot of people know that) and (even more obscure) according to Wkipedia:

'The hoolihan is a backhand loop thrown with a lariat, typically thrown to catch horses.'

Don't say you come here and never learn anything

So here comes the coincidence (well, sort of, but it would appeal to Richard).  The red paint on bits of our boat (deck cants and handrails) is Hempel Bordeaux Red and it's quite hard to get hold of.  The Hempel website led me to Uxbridge Boat Centre who indeed have the very paint I was looking for. However the cans had the date 2017 stamped on top. They didn't know if that was the date of manufacture or the UseBy date and so they were selling it off at half price (£16 instead of £32 or thereabouts) so I took a risk and bought two cans. That was  four weeks ago, but only today were we in a position to put on some of the Old Paint. So guess what song was in my head as I was opening the tin? 

Would it be a solid lump inside the tin? Had it turned to treacle? The tins certainly showed their age externally.  Well no, it was absolutely perfect. Good as new! Nice and flowy and no sediment at all after the obligatory quick stir.  The colour looked a bit off at first but as soon as we applied it we could see it was a perfect match.  We looked at the weather radar and saw that we had a window of a few hours before the next rain and we set to work, me masking (trying to keep the tape straight is really hard, I had to keep remembering to breathe) and Kath following behind with the paintbrush. 

 The Old Paint went on like a dream and look at the result (thankfully it was dry on top when the rain arrived, so ignore the rain drops))

 So now we're beginning to get somewhere. Another coat of red to follow. And more of it on the cants.

Maybe by the end of summer we'll be able to stop apologising for Herbie's scruffy appearance.

Painting progress

An email enquiry has flooded in from a Mr Rainman of Rickmansworth asking about our painting progress, so here goes:

At last we're making a bit of progress with painting Herbie's scabby bits.  Weather too hot or too wet has held us back quite a bit, although I got a lot of prep done. The roof and the handrail are top priority.

Having removed the old rotten handrail wood and got rid of the rust on the metal beneath thanks to angle grinder and Fertan, weve decided not to replace the wood. Now Herbie's handrail will just be like other boats.  It needed a lot of Isopon filler to smooth out the worst of the pitted metal

but it's got us an acceptable surface to paint on.  So I did just that.

So now we have a Fertan treated rail, with one coat of Hammerite rust beater on top and pits smoothed with filler on top of that (I checked that you can fill over paint), then a second coat of the hammerite on top of the filler, and as I write Kath is putting a layer of Craftmaster grey undercoat on top of that.

 The grey is a better colour underneath the final red gloss to come later. Kath's just finished so we can take a look. After taking of the masking tape Herbie looks weird to us without the red stripe.

We're expected rain for the next three days, so I thought I'd not leave the tape on that long. I'll have to tape it up again, before a coat of the red.

Meanwhile, you may have noticed that I got a coat of paint on a big area of roof this morning before breakfast (taking a tip from the Archers who always seem to have breakfast after milking the pigs or whatever it is they do). Even though the roof was cool, the paint was still dragging so I stirred quite a bit of Craftmaster PPA (Phil's Paint Additive) which helped a bit. As you can see, I've only painted to the centre line because I can't reach further and my old knees aren't really up to kneeling on the roof to paint the full width. And of course that's not the final coat.   The other side is another chapter for another day.  This painting lark is a non trivial task, especially when you're dodging the weather. 

So despite the weather not playing ball, we are getting some useful bits done. Its worth reminding our selves of what the roof and rail were like before we started. Here's a bit of the port side we haven't got at yet and the side we have just done was a lot worse.

and here's what the rail that we have done was like when we started 

More than anything I'm relieved that we have managed to find a good solution to the handrail.  The wood had it's merits, but it needed too frequent repainting and it was rotting in a number of places.

Poor Gertie is getting frustrated at being kept in while paint dries. We don't want her walking all over wet paint.

So we soldier on.