Back to the Old Grind

Brought the sander (my other tool purchase) to the ship yesterday to test it out. It’s a pain to lug the tools around, but at least I can look after them.

So…I did some sanding.

Indeed.

To tell you the truth, due to the general situation with the ship, I’ve lost heart in things. I had to prod myself to get to work.

I started with an area on the port side of the salon. It was a bit of a kapulu job, as we locals say. Thinking about it now, I wish I had taken the time to do better.

The base of the pillar at the left looked like the one on the right. I guess it’s a slight improvement.

On to the big job…the poop deck rail.

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that the rail was one of my first projects. It had been sanded and varnished by volunteers shortly after the ship changed hands in 2008. It went downhill from there and looked terrible after a while.

I hand sanded (ship had no power then), scrubbed, and varnished it over a period of six months. It wasn’t perfect, but it looked pretty good.

What happened?

I feel bad about letting it get so crappy, after working so hard on it.

Back to work with the sander:

Some parts are worse than others and will probably have to be taken back down to bare wood.

I was able to get a small section looking pretty again.

I’m glad I used le Tonkinois. Worth the expense, I think. Time to order more.

This will keep me out of trouble for a while.

Stepped on this while walking around on the poop deck:

Not much going on, ship-wise.

Water taxi, Hikino:

Varnishing Again

Bruce and I spent most of the day on the ship sanding, cleaning, and varnishing the forward rail on the poop deck.

Not bad:

Definitely better than it was.

We’re out of le Tonkinois (I neglected to place an order for it), so I used the Z-Spar Captain’s Varnish that we have on the ship. I must say I like the smell of le Tonkinois better. Oh well, I’ll see how it turns out. Hopefully, the rain will stay away and I’ll be able to put on a second coat tomorrow.

I watched OSG’s Overseas Nikiski arrive:

Detail of starboard side with tug Mikioi:

Maybe OSG would consider making a donation to help out an old tanker?

More Sanding

It was a nice day at the harbor, so I was able to do more sanding on board the ship. All sides of the small hatch are now done:

Yes, the drips are messy. 😛

The discolored (black), rough rail on the starboard side has been taken care of. No more splinters. Yay!

I was able to get a slightly better photo of the aft port side port:

Trolley stop shelters were moved to the sidewalk area near the ship:

I’m not too keen about them being there. However, it means that more people will see the ship as the trolleys drive by to pick up passengers.

Late afternoon scene:

The bus(es) bring Star of Honolulu passengers to the harbor/Pier 8. I assume the Harbor Police were there to keep an eye on things during the event (concert) this evening at Aloha Tower Marketplace.

Disney Arrives

I had hoped to make it down to the harbor in time to get pics of Disney Wonder arriving. Too late. I did get to hear the “When You Wish Upon a Star” horn, which amused me.

Rainbow:

Rain on rail:

Will let it dry off a bit before I put another coat of le Tonkinois on it.

Morning sun on hull:

Rainy Morning

I went to the ship this morning to do more work on the rail. It rained on and off, which was a pain.

Varnishing didn’t take very long, so I decided to apply elastomeric coating to some of the areas on the poop deck where the old coating was degraded and cracked. This was just a quick, rough bit of work because of the rain. I’ll do a more thorough job next time.

It never ceases to amaze me how fairy terns pick some of the most awkward places to lay their eggs.

Almost There!

The port side of the poop deck rail is done. It was fairly cool today, so I managed to sand and clean the last section on the starboard side.

The Birds

Well…it’s not THAT bad. Appropriate, though, given my recent posts.

It was a mellow sort of day on the Falls. I spent the morning working on the poop deck rail. Yes, still sanding, cleaning, and varnishing. I’m happy to report that the port side is mostly done.

It just wants a few more coats of le Tonkinois. That brings me to the bird part of this post. As I mentioned in a previous post, birds like perching on the ship. Unfortunately, they tend to leave unwanted “by-products.” After scrubbing these by-products off my nice, shiny rail, I noticed that their caustic nature had damaged the coating. Bummer.

A spotted dove (Streptopelia chinensis), looking rather guilty:

“It wasn’t me! I’m not on the wood.”

It was raining on and off, so I decided to put off laying down more of the elastomeric coating on the poop deck. You can see part of my previous effort in the rail photo above…the dark grey area along the bases of the stanchions. (The patchy, somewhat feeble areas on the right side of the photo were done by the previous owner of the ship.)

In my rush to leave the house this morning, I forgot an item I needed for another project on my list, so that will have to wait as well.

Moving down the list…Time for a quick visual inspection. Scraping away accumulated debris and rust reveals…

Ugh. Crap.

Back to the Rail

After a long, stressful work week, the last thing on most peoples’ minds is more work. Maintenance work on the Falls can be tedious, hard, hot, and dirty. Call me mad, but I look forward to it. While I am on the ship, I can forget about emails, phone calls, and tight deadlines. It is another world.

Last weekend, I went back to working on the poop deck rail. It is quite satisfying to see how much better things look with a bit of care.

From the poop deck, I had a good view of the Red Dolphin at Pier 8:

Look familiar? Yes, she was originally the (no) KanDoo! Island.

Note: The quality of recent photos is not the best because I am using my cell phone camera. The trusty Nikon is in sickbay waiting to see the surgeon.

I wanted to go down to the ship over the past few days to apply more coats of le Tonkinois to the rail. Work and the poor weather squashed those plans.

It is now Thursday night. Needless to say, I am looking forward to the weekend and more time on the Falls.

Next Section Ready

I sanded and cleaned the section of the rail adjacent to the test area. Unfortunately, according to the forecast, it looks like there will be rain during the week . 😦

Six Coats