Category Archives: Shop notes

We have had a hectic spring and first half of the summer summer finishing major projects on Zeeto-new teak decks and sealing the  teak decks of Electra with a Coelan ureathane varnish that is popular in Europe and starting to make inroads here in the states. We have posted photos of some of Zeetos deck work in the Projects- Zeeto.  Heres a photo of a paint job we are wrapping up

Mike of Mikes Sign is applying the vinyl stickers

This is a photo of Electra’s decks as she was sailing to Bayfield last week

By coating the decks we are hoping to extend the lifetime of the decks and stop all nuisance leaks that are so common older wooden decks.

New wood going in to the bow section of Zeeto. We had to remove all the degraded wood and cut in a new bow sprit support timber.

This photo shows the extent of material we had to cut away. The stem was capped with a copper piece and this protected the end-grain of the stem for decay.

This photo is the same stage looking forward.

This photo shows the new timber fit in place

From the bow- and Alex is looking over his handiwork, getting ready to permanently install.

Spring is here!   We can work outside again- unusually warm temps for late March are letting us start up our outside work.  We are back at it preparing the Zeeto’s decks for a teak decking overlay.  Last fall we removed the bulk of the old paint built up over the years. Our first task this spring is to sand  close to the cabins and deck edges and to make sure the subdecking is sound.  We found some serious decay in the subdeck plywood and structural members at the stem head directly under the bowsprit. We removed the bowsprit and are cutting out all the bad wood and installing new material in this area

This is what we saw when we removed the loose fiberglass. The wood under the bow sprit was soft so we had to lift off the bowsprit and find the extent of the degraded material.

This is how far the decay had gotten. We are removing all the bad wood and installing douglas fir material and then installing marine plywood and sheathing the ply with  10 oz fiberglass set in epoxy resin

Here is another view from further astern.

Zeeto deck work- Fall 2009 , This is a series of photos of the deck after we sanded and chipped off the build up paint and various coatings that have been applied over the years. The edges and perimeters still need to be done with smaller sanders. We used an 8″ disc sander with 36 grit paper to do the bulk of this initial removal.

this shot is lookin forward on the starboard side

this shot is on the port side looking at the cockpit area.  After all the detail sanding is done next to coamings and cabinside the margin pieces can be templated and cut out.

Zeeto deck work- The hull work has been completed over the last several winters and now the decks and cabin house need attention. We are going to remove the many layer of paint and who know what coatings that have been applied to the plywood decks. We will remove the buildup coatings down to fiberglass sheathing. Doug H. Zeetos owner plans a wood decking overlay so we are trying to beat the weather and getting the dirty work done before the boat gets covered.

There is no easy way to do this work -chisel and careful work with a 8″ disc grinder.

The wet looking spots are where we applied epoxy resin to any area of the fiberglass sheathing the was nicked or looked thin. We are working outside in northern Minnesota nearing the middle of November on 50 degree day.

The main cabin beams are glued in ready for the cabin top to be fit

One of winter projects is building a new cabin, interior and installing all the systems on a 45′ steel trawler. Here is a picture of the bare hull after we removed the exisitng cabin house