Batboat Rebuild: Day 5 July 27, 2008

I found some more time to work on the boat Sunday, July 27th.

I bought my first grinder a few days before and found I could have removed the deck faster and easier with that than with the sawzall.

The new grinder was quickly out of the box and because I never used one before I tested a few spots on the transom and the remaining rear deck. I didn't see any dust but could smell the fiberglass and didn't think there was any harm to myself and continued to grind fiberglass and decking for another five minutes with no protection. A big mistake.

The next day I woke up feeling like I had a respiratory infection and this lasted for four or five days. After the first couple of days I tried to walk a block away to the corner store and could hardly make it.

I know now that when grinding fiberglass always wear a full respirator. You'll need the ones with with filters, not the surgical type. The surgical type just won't work. If you smell fiberglass dust, you are also breathing it in.

Fiberglass dust is also like itching powder. Not only was I sick but I itched like crazy for the next couple of days.

For July 27th, I bought a full respirator and wore one of the full body Tyvek suits I bought online from Uline.com. I was ready from head to toe to grind out the rest of the transom and rear decking.

Here I am in full suit. Under all of this was Dickie overalls. Tyvek suits do not breath. I was over 90 degrees outside and by the end of the day I was soaked with sweat but had fun.

For several hours I ground out the rest of the rear deck, bilge and old rotted transom and prepared the area for the new transom.


There was a lot of fiberglass dust and it took a while to get it all out with my shopvac.



The original transom looked sort of like this.
The new transom I'm installing will completely cover the rear of the hull so I made a template out of a roll of package wrap paper I found at the dollar store.


The new transom will also be much thicker and will give the boat much more strength than when it left the factory in 1969.

This is the old bilge drain. I'll need one about twice the length for the new transom.