28-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Mollyhawk". Part VII.
The finishing off of the boat after she is all planked and decked is most important if you want a good looking boat. The trouble with most amateurs is that by the time they get this far they are so anxious to get their boat afloat that they do not take the time to properly plane off, sandpaper and otherwise prepare the wood to properly receive the paint. Do not shirk this part of the work. Keep at the planning off of the seams and planking until all humps and hollows have disappeared and the plank, anyway you bend a small batten around its surface, shows absolutely fair. When it has been planed as true as is possible, start in with coarse sandpaper, folded over a block of wood and scrub the plank crossway to the grain until every plane mark is obliterated. Then, with finer sandpaper, rub it fore and aft, cutting out the marks of the heavier paper. Then, and not until then, is your boat ready for paint. In a boat where wooden plugs have been fitted over her planking you can go still farther by taking a bucket of hot water and a big sponge and sponging over the entire planking from deck to keel on both sides. Your boat has to be wet sometime, and the wood and the plugs have to swell. This sponging process makes the wood go through it's swelling before she gets overboard and shows particularly in the case of the plugs, which, owing to the wood having been slightly compressed when driven in with a hammer, is more apt to expand than the planking, and you can go around your boat as soon as the wood has dried with a chisel and shave off dozens of plugs that have swelled out a sixteenth of an inch or so beyond the surface of the wood. You can imagine what this would have done had you first painted your boat. For this reason many experienced boatmen never attempt to finish up a brand new boat as soon as she is built. They launch her and use her a month or so, then haul her out and allow her to thoroughly dry and then put her through the finishing process of sandpaper and two or three good coats of paint, for, by that time, the wood has come and gone all it will, due to swelling and any little straining the boat may do until she gets swelled up tight and solid has been done. Now, when she is finished, she will last for years, only requiring the surface of the paint to be replaced where it wears out.
For those who do not understand just how the line-up to which the copper is to be painted, for in 28-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Mollyhawk" we show what is called a boot-top, that is, several inches of the copper paint shows above water when she is afloat, a few words on this subject may be of assistance. With the boat set absolutely plumb, tack a straight edged board across the bows at the height you want the boot-top forward, and another across the stern the height the boot-top is to be raised there. Between these two, just so it clears the side of the hull amidships, allow a fish cord to sag until it gives you the proper height amidships, which, as you will notice, is lower than at either end. Then, with a long spirit level or a batten of wood and a short one, you can go along this line at intervals of every foot or so and mark spots on the planking to correspond with the height of this line. Then tack a batten, carefully sighting along it as you do so, to see that there are no unfair kinks in it, and with a race knife or the point of a brad awl cut or scratch a light groove along in the planking. Many a man before you have made the mistake of simply marking this with a lead pencil, which the first coat of paint has obliterated, for even a scratch, in time, becomes lost to sight through being-filled up with the paint. It is a good practice to always keep this mark visible by re-scratching it occasionally, for nothing looks worse on a boat, as you yourself may have noticed, than a crooked wave-like line, where the two paints meet.
While it does not matter, if the boat is to be used in fresh water, whether the bottom be painted with a copper compound or not, it does make a great deal of difference if she is to be used in salt water where the torredo works such havoc in boat's planking by eating innumerable holes in it. Copper paint is the only thing that will keep this destructive little worm away and for that reason a great many people believe that copper paint should be put right onto the bare wood so that the copper can soak into the pores of the wood, but as it is the liquid that really goes into the wood, depositing the copper on the outside of the planking it is very doubtful whether this method has any virtue in it or not, or whether the copper be applied on top of a fine coat of lead. One thing we do know, and that is that the bottom should be kept completely covered, with some copper paint and. not allowed to chafe to the bare wood.
The finish of 28-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Mollyhawk" I am going to leave entirely to those who build her. I do not know of any business that has so many conflicting opinions as that of painting a boat. Of course, I have my own views on the subject, but I can take you to another yachtsman who has had equal experience and he may advocate an entirely different manner of painting the boat. Some want a white painted top side. Others stoutly condemn it and say any colour but white should be used. Some want varnished decks. Some would not have a varnished deck. Some will swear by one brand of varnish and some by another, all the result of personal experience on their part and more than likely the different opinions have been the result of accident more than anything else.
So, paint 28-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Mollyhawk" any color you like; you'll do it to suit yourself, anyhow — you've a right to; she's yours.
28-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Mollyhawk."
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