November 23, 2012 - another project

The boat in the paint shop at La Conner Maritime.
I have a nice warm dry place to work, which is great.

I knew I forgot a project on my last post.  I'm installing a new LED navigation light on the stern of the boat.  Our old one was not very bright, and stuck up enough to be vulnerable to being broken off, or tripping someone.  The new one is a 3 mile (visibility) modern LED stern light.  The problem is that there is no way to mount a modern light back there without building a custom mount for it.  So that is what I started to do today.

Old light and new light housing.  There's no good way to attach  this
to a curved surface.  I have to make a new "pod" for it.

Light pod bonded into place.  Ready to start glassing it.  It will look factory when I'm done.

The new light "pod" partially built.  Outside fiberglassed into place.

Here are a few pictures of the pilothouse door refinishing project.  It takes about 5 hours to strip a door down to bare wood.  Most of the old paint comes off with a heat gun and putty knife.  Then a quick sanding to get it perfectly smooth and flat.

One pilothouse door before stripping.

Closeup showing why we need to refinish these doors.  Yuck!

One pilothouse door partially stripped down.  Looking good.

Well it's time to head back to the boat now to carry on.....