ladder, bucket, anchor

Although this may seem like an off target post, I include it as an example of why it is sometimes nice to have a few random things lying around the shop.  As luck would have it, the anchor height = ladder + bucket.  

In preparation for painting, I realized that I had not yet installed the anchor line tube into the forward portion of the lower bridge deck. To do this, it was necessary for me to gather up the ground tackle and temporarily put all the pieces together to determine the proper angle of the entrance tube.  This small tube is not shown in the photo but it needed to be installed so that under tension, the anchor rode will be concentric with the axis of the anchor roller and the power windlass. 

This will be my hurricane anchor.  It is a Fortress  FX - 85 which has a working load of 5200 lbs.    

*  in the lower portion of this photo, you can also see the mast which is suspended from the shop rafters at head level.  As a reminder if it's existence, I often bash my head into it.  

Visual proportioning

As a first step in the painting process, it is important to make sure that the boat is the right shape. Since all joints are covered with double biased tape, this results in a slight surface discontinuity. One way to deal with this is to sand the edges of the tape then apply some filler compound. I have found it best to use a mixture of epoxy and glass micro balloons over all the seams, sand them and then apply a ready formulated faring compound. System Three offers a really nice product called "QuickFair" and although it is sinfully expensive,  if you apply it with a blade, very little final sanding is required. 

To mix the filler. here's a little trick I taught myself that makes mixing easier. I call it visual proportioning. I mark out a proportional surface area on a cookie sheet and cover the areas.  By varying  the thickness of each component, it is possible to control the volume of faring compound required for particular jobs.   

two parts A to one part B filler

visual proportion

mixing

smoothing and sanding the port side stern steps and kick up rudder box.