Bristol Channel Cutter Elizabeth

Nothing in this life is for sure, except that we all get old and die. Sound morbid? Nah, death is just another part of life. I’ve been taking care of Dad for over a year now… some days more than others, but this past winter I’ve been taking care of him full time… between my various varnish projects of course. But the time has come for him to make the move to assisted living, and sell the house. The mammoth job of cleaning out the house is upon us (me). My brother is…well, not very involved in helping out so far. Hopefully that will change. So I’ll be away from Elizabeth for a few weeks helping Dad make the transition/clean out the house.

Before leaving Elizabeth (under her winter cover again) I was able to get a coat of CPES on the bulwarks. I debated back and forth on this issue, just like I went back and forth on paint. The solvents in CPES are said to reduce the sealing and bonding properties of the epoxy. Gugeon Bros claim heated straight epoxy is the way to go for maximum penetration and moisture resistance, see article here.  My purely non-scientific intuition thinks their arguments make sense. But I had already bought the CPES, it was 42º outside, and so reasoned there was no harm in using it as a first epoxy coat. My intention is to lay another coat of straight epoxy over the CPES, but I might skip it and go straight to Awlgrip 545 Epoxy Primer. I’m undecided. Seems most of this research on epoxy sealing is done on plywood with varnish as the intended top coat. I’d like to see some research about epoxy sealers on teak with LPU paint as the intended top coat. Perhaps the recomendations would be different. The Awlgrip 545 Epoxy Primer is pretty tenacious stuff… is it as good a moisture barrier as West System? I don’t know yet.

I moved ALOT of stuff to the boat before we cleaned out the apartment we had been staying in. I intend to liveaboard Elizabeth when I return in a few weeks. I will no longer have the luxery of storing stuff at Dad’s house. I’m purging. One project I wrapped up before leaving was the spreaders. I laid 3 coats of Awlgrip Federal Yellow on these spreaders with a foam brush, mostly. It went on OK, except for a few drips/sags made during first coat - for which I used a chip brush - very bad idea. But it doesn’t matter no one will see the spreaders close up. Thin coats are much easier to achieve with a foam brush.