The Garage: A craft-y type thread for handypeople

Progress on the cleaning of my boat!

• First pic has the stickers I spent three hours waiting for at the DMV. A lot of sailing is just standing around waiting, lol. The ones on this side are crooked because I couldn't reach the bow from the dock. I had to stick them on blindly from the top of the deck, clutching the rail with my other hand. That was S C A R Y -4/100 do not recommend if you are at all frightened of wobbly tippy unstable platforms like a boat deck.
• A shot of the V-berth. You can't see most of the work because I cleaned under the cushions and forgot to take before and after pics, but trust me when I say they were gross and it's much better now.
• The table/bed area, which is half finished because I needed a place to put the engine and some really old ropes.
• The teak doors were grimy and ugly, but they're supposed to look very nice once sanded and refinished, so I started the job today. After a very gentle cleaning with nontoxic cleanser, bits of this beautiful honey color started to peek out. The sanding and finishing will have to wait till Tuesday when they're all dry and I have a day off work, but I'm really excited!
• The sink WAS SO HORRIBLE AND NASTY because the previous owner liked to just dump coffee grounds in there. I poured a whole cup of vinegar into it and scrubbed away the crust. Then I went over it again with some regular cleaner so there wouldn't be a vinegar smell. Now the galley is sparkling clean!
• I also cleaned and oiled the top hatch and the sliding door that closes the v-berth. They were noisy and stuck every time I tried to open them. Now they move nicely, although the top hatch still squeaks so I'll have to figure out what's up.
• Once all the big stuff is done, I'm going to replace one of the windows which is very cracked. It still keeps water and wind out, but I just don't like the look.

Very nice! Does that mean you'll be living on a boat now?

She's well over twenty, isn't she? But, in surprisingly good nick, considering somebody obviously let her go a bit. For most of the time, she's been well-loved, however — that's very clear.

Nice to see her in loving hands, again. (I find that there's little sadder than a tidy little boat being just left to slowly decline.)

The good thing about older boats: they tell you their foibles upfront. New boats save them up to be nasty surprises at exactly the wrong time.

I was going to suggest sugar soap to alleviate some of the elbow grease, but given many of the surfaces you have, maybe not. :/ That sink might be worth the investment, though: it's going to take a while for it to quit caking up at the drop of a hat.

PS: It's the cut in me, I know... but, looking at all those naked panels got me thinking... Roses and Castles. It's not a North American tradition and certainly nothing from anywhere close to Manilla; but. Give canal Roses and Castles a google some time. At the very least, it's a cheap way to coordinate second-hand storage.

edited 9th Jul '17 4:01:39 AM by Euodiachloris

NSBL: Yes. I am going to live on a boat. It's going to be awesome.

Euodia: My, Roses and Castles is a very charming aesthetic! I recognize it vaguely, but I don't know where I would find it besides the thrift stores I frequent, rarely. Also, I am thinking indigenous Filipino interior design—but thanks for the idea. And yes, she's a '72 Oday at 23 feet. Better condition than most of the boats I've seen at the dock. I'm going to rename her once I'm done, because her current name is "Schatz1" which I don't like because it looks like a second-choice email address and I'm looking for Pinoy names.

The cabin and deck have been cleaned entirely, and I got rid of more crap and organized the life-jackets and fenders. What I really enjoyed was woodwork progress! First is the difference between clean teak and dirty teak. All that nice wood hiding under at least two years of neglect.

The second picture is a half-paint job I'm going to remove because I don't like the color. A friend who likes sailing is coming by later this week to help me sand off the last of the paint and grime.

edited 10th Jul '17 8:41:01 AM by Leradny

You can find online guides to DIY the style: if you're already experienced with brushwork and model paints, it's a walk in the park.

It's also similar to the folk styles you find in Roma designs across Europe through to Eastern European, Slavic and Central Asian/ Turkic/ Mongolian folk art. Heck, you can see it in traditional Delftware designs (even if they limited their colours by copying what they thought of as Chinese designs, which became tradition). It wouldn't surprise me to find it back and forth across South Asia and Polynesia via, well, the flipping Mongols and others.

Just... you find more playing cards, castles, roses and panto/ harlequinade themes in Britain. France likes daisies, poppies, cornflowers, ivy and moon-sun-stars with what can also be called "toleware".

The advantage to branding your equipment this way: you make it very difficult for thieves to successfully steal and fence your stuff when it has your boat's name, serial number and colour theme on it.

edited 10th Jul '17 9:20:49 AM by Euodiachloris

Thanks again, but I'm going to stick to the Philippines. It has the same "too individualized to be jackable", and also it's my country! There's a theme of having relatively plain hulls with colorful sails, and additional decorations are banners or hangings, probably for ease of putting them on and taking them off for festivities.

See:

• Some nice small boats◊
• A lovingly constructed big boat◊
• A boat so fancy I probably need to pay just to get on deck◊

Lerad: Looking nice so far.

Out of curiosity I looked up the current name on your boat. It is one of two things. The last name of a Senator of Hawaii or simply the German word for Cattle.

It is looking nicer as you go along.

edited 10th Jul '17 12:11:34 PM by TuefelHundenIV

The German translations provided by friends are either sweetheart, treasure, or now cattle. Regardless, changing it will be pretty simple since the name isn't actually painted on the hull.

About dem nifty boats: so much passion, so many flowers! (Sorry, I had to go the pun-route when I noticed a certain kind getting stylised...)

But, seriously: diamonds are always a girl's best friend: nice, bright diamonds.

Schatzi or treasure or sweetheart, for sure. Cattle doesn't compute to my mostly fluent german :) definitely rename it, but there are also strict conventions to follow. Make sure not ocean spirits get mad at you. Schatz 1 is a silly name for sure.

Take it from somebody who has lived in Switzerland: it's one of the bog-standard names for moo-cows.

I felt like hugging the poor boat stuck with that ridiculous pet-name. Seriously, even the generic boat names of "Wind Dancer" or "[Anything] Spirit" are less eye-rolling.

edited 11th Jul '17 2:23:36 AM by Euodiachloris

I do agree with you on that Euo! So, shatzi is like bessie or clarabell in america?

Or Daisy. Never forget Daisy!

And here you had to remind me of the ship names from Puzzle Pirates: "Brave Trout", "Inexpensive Sprat" and so on.

Also, I am seriously pondering whether I want to bash one creepy and massive snake-themed necklace out of $10 worth of cheap bling I found on Aliexpress. Including a double ouroboros from Neverending Story.

Eudi: LMFAO there actually is a huge yacht named Wind Dancer a few docks off from mine.

I'm milling over Buwan, the Tagalog moon goddess.

edited 11th Jul '17 1:28:18 PM by Leradny

Don't look now, but you are going to meet a lot of Angels. Or Angel II - Vs (in the case of the Angel Vs I've met, I always have had a quiet ponder over the obvious question surrounding what happened to the previous four... And, just how bad around sandbanks that guy/family has to be to lose them...)

Awwwww rats! The old name is on the hull after all. It's in the most basic black letters on the starboard side of the stern. That'll have to go.

After an hour spent trying to sand off paint, I'm grabbing a natural or at least non-toxic paint remover from the hardware store.

Lera: What you want is a random orbital sander, if you can borrow one. Though if you'd still rather use chemical stripper, I usually get CitriStrip, which smells of oranges and doesn't have fumes. And it's a gel, so it sticks to angled surfaces.

Also maybe look into cabinet scrapers? And/or razor scrapers, for small spaces. My cabinet scraper is great for stripping brittle stuff like shellac. It needs regular sharpening with a file, though.

Lera there's an old ship tradition that so as not to anger ocean gods, you cover the letters of the outward facing name before you go about removing the boat's name anywhere else. keep the new name covered too until you can have a proper naming ceremony and boat blessing with food and cheering. thank the ocean for carrying (old boat name) in safety for this long, and ask the ocean to accept (new boat name) upon the ocean's back.

So I'm gonna bash a creepy snake-themed necklace out of $7.50 worth of cheap China-made bling. I got a big boho necklace with shitloads of little coins dangling off it, silver Auryn pendant, two cursed Aztec pieces of eight and a Death Eater Mark pendant ordered, which means I have a month to clear my desk in order to find my needle-nose pliers and those earring hooks I took either the feathers or those lovely skeletons off of.

I am totally having a boat party for the renaming ceremony.

As soon as I figure out how the fuck to use regular three-pronged plug electronics on a boat.. Google searches have not helped at all.

You need an inverter. Or a couple of them. Just be damn sure they're Marine rated. the ones for cars and trucks will die an ugly, fast death from salt corrosion on the boat.

Hmmm. That's odd. Why do you guys have that difference, at all? In South Africa and the UK, the set-up is "standard plugs; transformers in any size, shape or form need not apply".

I guess it's because your electricity grid basically sucks?

edited 14th Jul '17 12:56:36 AM by Euodiachloris

Nah, the question was more like "how to run household electric devices on a boat", and looking at the size of the boat itself, you'd really need an inverter, a bank of high-output batteries (good ol' lead-acid ones, like those used in cars) and most probably a charger of some sort. Solar panels on the cabin roof or something.

Hmmm... "don't run electric stuff unless you're hooked up when moored". Or "use the gas hob".

Oh... and invest in solar panel chargers for the computer/ phone stuff. Worth it.