Amazing what a few coats of paint can do

Finally more progress has been made on the Fireball. We originally saw it here. About a year ago when I went for a drive up to Queensland and came back with the Fireball on the back of a borrowed trailer.

More recently we saw me getting a trailer of my own for it here.

Well, it now has nearly enough paint and varnish on it that we can splash soon again. My brother has put a few coats on the bottom and between us to date we have put 2 coats of paint in the cockpit and 2 coats of varnish on the deck. With the varnish on it started to look quite special, particularly remembering what it did look like before we started to repaint.

Below are some photos of the work in progress.

Just started sanding the deck. Not a very fun job I must say.

This is where I stopped for dinner. We didn't get a chance to start again until the next morning because the pain in the cockpit was still a bit wet in a few spots and we were hoping to keep most of the sanding dust out of the paint. You can see the whole deck except for the bits around the cockpit have been sanded and are pretty well ready for varnish.

This is the beginning of the light board that will sit on the back of the trailer to hold the number plate and lights. Nathan made it from a scrap piece of timber left over from repairing the verandah at their house. We ended up painting it to match the cockpit as we already had the paint out and being an exterior house paint it should handle being out in the weather.

All ready to go, wiped down with a damp rag then time to apply. We put the paint in the cockpit together then while that was starting to dry I put the varnish on. This was easier for 1 person to do because we only had one tin of varnish.

And here is the finished product after 2 coats. It was still a bit damp here so looks shinyer than it will once finished. But it certainly gives a nice look to the timber. It will probably need another coat or 2 as before we put this one on there were still some checks and weathered bits of timber that had soaked up all they could and were dry again.

So far on the 2 coats we have used probably a hair more than half of the tin we bought of varnish.

Hopefully the next update will start with a picture of the boat in the water with all sails drawing well. But we'll see. There are still a few bits a pieces that need to be done on the trailer first.

Cheers,
Rex