Finally great weather here and I took advantage of it to get to the transom skin corrosion and holes. Sunday I used Marine Tex, JB Weld in tube and stick to fill the holes and pitting after using a SS brush, a nyalox brush and then POR-15 metal cleaner and metal prep and acetone. I used flashing on the inside as a backer and sanded and acetone cleaned both it and the transom skin in the area of the largest holes. Lots of other areas did not need that since they were not perforated, but the big hole required it. In that area I did both sides, and taped and mechanically fastened the flashing. I thought the flashing would be permanent, but it lifted the next morning and I peeled it off. It left a somewhat smooth surface of marine tex anyway, and that had adhered well to the aluminum and the hole was gone. A bit more filling of missed spots and some sanding to smooth things out and I am satisfied.
Today was coating with POR-15 in the areas behind the new transom and where the outside repair plate will be. This seemed to fill in the micro corrosion pitting spots, but was a bit of an experiment. I'm not sure it is necessary, and who knows what the next 50 years will bring under it, but I gave it a shot. Tomorrow will be putting the repair patch on the outside of the transom, well bedded in 5200. This will be done with clecos and mechanical fastening with temporary fasteners and the permanent fastening with solids and bolts done later.
I also managed to get the cabin bulkheads in for fitting and figured out how the deck and door will be done, and managed to get a start on polishing.
What works OK but not great for the polishing for me is wet sanding each strake with 600, 1000, 1500, 2000 grit paper by hand using linear strokes, then using a DA polisher with Mothers Mag polish on a foam Chemical Guys pad. I am not getting the mirror finish others have gotten, but this is just an experiment so far, and I'm not shooting for perfection. I am not going to try to remove all the scratches, since that would mean a lot more aggressive sanding. I will be trying a few other things I have seen used here, and may have to use a fabric pad and clay bars.
Unnecessary holes and through corrosion gone. The patch panel shown will cover the black POR-15 on the outside and I will probably polish the transom. I was lucky that almost every bad hole could be covered by the 5 foot long panel. The Z-brace was also treated.
I have only worked on the top two strakes and the spray rail so far. The rest of the polishing is going to take a while but I have realized that it would be best to do this at least most of the way before painting to avoid getting black swarf on the paint. The holes in the second strake are where the PO put on a number plate with ferrous steel machine screws and nuts, causing corrosion. Why drill holes like that instead of stick on numbers?
On to 5 days of good weather.
Ron
