sunfish wood parts restoration (by Epoxyworks)

I got my latest copy of “Epoxyworks” magazine in the mail earlier this week and was excited to see they had an article about the restoration of wooden Sunfish parts – the rudder, tiller, and daggerboard.  I completed similar repairs and improvements to my various Sunfish (and Super Porpoise) wooden parts as well, using more or less the same steps – but with maybe slightly more serious structural repairs for my gear.

photo by Epoxyworks magazine

you can read the full article here: http://epoxyworks.com/index.php/sunfish-wood-restoration/

how many is too many?

I got my notice(s) from the State of Michigan to renew my watercraft registration for my sailboats.

• 1960(ish) Super Porpoise
• 1966(ish) Sunfish
• 1970’s Minifish
• 2000 Sunfish

is that too many?

the 2000 Sunfish and Minifish both are my go-to boats (me in the Sunfish, boys in the Minifish).  my oldest son is getting big enough to probably sail a Sunfish alone, so maybe the ’66 Sunfish will get worked back into the rotation (after my BIL puts the splashguard back on it…).

but then I’ll need to modify my trailer to carry 3 sailboats…

the Super Porpoise hasn’t seen the water in years, so I should probably just fix up a couple minor spots and try to sell it.  any takers?

Michigan sailboat registration is cheap, though – only $9 for a 3-yr sticker.

that’s another reason that Michigan is a great place to sail!

super porpoise standing on it’s tail

can you teach an old fish new tricks?

this is the most action my old Super Porpoise has seen in a long time.

while we were living in Indiana, I used to store it by hanging it from the garage ceiling (above the garage door space).

but when we moved from Indiana back to Michigan, I had to hang it on it’s side against the garage wall as the ceiling height was too low, and I hadn’t moved it since. then I bought an old Sunfish with a trailer off of ebay, and a couple years later, added a 2000 Sunfish and an older Minifish (for the boys, of course) to my fleet.

since we have built a new house and moved out of the old one, we had to move the Super Porpoise as well, and I needed to get it temporarily out of the way, at least for the short term until I figure out a better long term storage solution until I can either fix up the blemishes or just sell the old girl.

I’ve seen pictures of all the pretty new and shiny Sunfish sailboats standing vertically at the Laser Performance factory in Rhode Island, so figured it was at least worth trying. here’s one of the 60th anniversary Sunfish all pretty and in nice vertical rows.

seems simple, right?

hardly.  despite setting up a cheap block and tackle up in the rafters, there wasn’t really a good way to get the Super Porpoise tipped up vertically.  I had my 15-yr old son helping to muscle it around as best we could, but if you can believe it, my barn isn’t quite big enough (yeah, try telling my wife that…).  at least not big enough to stand up the Super Porpoise or Sunfish sailboats easily. after using the full extent of the block and tackle, we had to muscle it around by hand, and the nose kept hitting the sloping underside of the roof plywood, the boat would tip back and forth smacking into the trusses.  through some miracle of sweat, possibly tears (my son’s, obviously), and shear dumb luck – we did get it to stand up vertically.  we slipped a couple 2×4’s underneath to support it, and walked away.

I don’t know how I’m gonna get that thing down…

 

small sailboat garage storage

while flipping through old photos yesterday (when I found the photo of my 1st sail in a Sunfish), I also found this picture of how I used to store my old Super Porpoise when we used to live down in southeastern Indiana.  the Super Porpoise was shortly produced as a slightly larger version of the Sunfish, but with a lot of similar features, and the same lateen sail (although a tad larger sail area).

our garage at that house had a large amount of extra space above the garage doors.  I installed (4) heavy-duty eyebolts in the garage ceiling, making sure they were securely screwed into the wood trusses on the other side of the drywall.  I then just used a couple pieces of rope, maybe 1/2″ diameter standard rope you could find at a hardware store, so nothing fancy.  I think there were a few S-hooks to make it easy to connect the rope to the eyebolts.

as you can see, it actually was hanging below the garage door (in its open position), but was still high enough that our smaller sedan could be parked easily right below the boat.  I also tossed some more stuff on the boat as you can see the mast, as well as an old plastic kiddie pool for my son to play in during the hot summer days.

this would be a lighter-duty version of winter storage than what I’m currently using at my dad’s barn, with 2×4 hangers and a 2×4 cross beam holding up my 2 Sunfish.

sunfish rudder and daggerboard repair – progress

a long while back I posted about refinishing my Sunfish and Super Porpoise rudders and daggerboards.  I proceeded to sand down a bit of the finish on the Super Porpoise parts, but sailing seasons got in the way, along with various other winter woodworking projects, and I never got back to finishing them, or even starting on the Sunfish wood parts.

so this winter, I bit the bullet and plunged full bore into refinishing the wood parts from all (3) of my boats – (2) Sunfish and (1) Super Porpoise.  here is a look at the (2) Sunfish rudders.

the lower rudder is from my new(er) 2000 Sunfish, the upper rudder is from my 1960’s Sunfish.  strangely the older rudder seems to be in quite a bit better shape, and the newer rudder appears to have some type of finish glooped onto it, some sloppily gumming up the rudder spring as well.

step 1 was removing the hardware and inspecting the condition of each piece.  the older rudder has a couple cracks up near the head, and the drilled holes for the rudder pins are all misshapen from years of use.

the newer rudder is in similar condition at the rudder pin holes, with no noticeable cracks.  but the finish that was used is all gummed up and just looks horrible.  pretty severe were is noticeable at the one rudder pin hole.

the daggerboard from the newer Sunfish was coated with the same finish, and was likewise a sloppy mess.  step 2 would be to strip the finish from the wooden parts.  since I would be working in my make-shift woodshop in my basement, I opted for the Citristrip (“safer”) Paint & Varnish Gel.  after brushing the orange stripping agent on and letting it sit for a while, I then used various scrapers to remove the finish.

the Citristrip gel worked pretty well for the older wooden parts, but the (2) newer pieces with the strange finish were hardly phased by it.  I hit them with a 2nd coat, and let is sit and soak longer, but it didn’t work much better the 2nd time around.  after consulting with some a Sunfish expert (thanks Alan!), I think we determined that the sloppy finish was some type of epoxy, which made it that much more difficult to remove.

step 3 was thus my process to get each board to a stripped and ready-to-finish condition.  I used my random orbit sander, and worked my way through several grits, carefully starting with 40 grit.  normally, I wouldn’t use 40 grit, as it is quite rough, and even then I only used it for the flat portions, but extreme measures were required to get through that sloppy epoxy. 

I then would work my way up to 60, 80, 100, and 120 grit papers, and by then the boards felt pretty smooth.  I used a bit of 60 grit paper by hand on the edges, and then jumped right up to 150 grit to finish out smoothing the edges.  during the power-sanding, I wore a sanding mask, and had my large shop dust collector running right near the workpiece, as well as my air cleaner that is hanging from the floor joists to help keep dust down as much as possible.  every once in a while, I would empty the small bag that collects sanding sawdust on the random orbit sandpaper into a plastic jug – as I will be re-using some of the sawdust later for repairs.

I didn’t try to sand out some of the deep gouges, as you can see above, but will use a filler later on those areas.  some of the leading and trailing edges of the boards had some dry rot that I removed as best I could.  I used a block plane to slightly re-shape the daggerboard edges by hand.

step 4 is various repairs.  the upper ends of the daggerboard have holes of various shapes and sizes from the hardware that had kept the handle in place.  some were just stripped nail holes, some were bolt holes that had pulled right out of the board end grain.

I used some blue painter’s tape to dam off the end, as well as to close of the bottom of the board.  I then mixed up a batch of West System epoxy (I buy mine at Jamestown Distributors or US Composites).  I have the 105 resin and 206 slow hardener as shown above.  to this I mixed in some of the 404 high-density adhesive filler (white in color), and I added in some of the saved sawdust (in the plastic container on the left in the picture above) to get the epoxy mixture colored similar to the wood.

this picture is the end result – from the side the blue tape was on.  the other side needs to be sanded and smoothed down some as I didn’t apply the epoxy perfectly level.  but I was impressed at how well the simple blue painter’s tape worked on the bottom and end grain areas.  I will probably use this same mixture to fill in the out of round holes in the rudder heads, and just re-drill new holes after the epoxy has hardened.

for the cracked sections, I am going to try to reinforce the cracked area by drilling a hole and inserting a dowel, set in place with some epoxy.  I cut a small notch in my Super Porpoise rudder to create a flat area to start drilling.  I’m sure it would help immensely to have a drill press, or create some sort of jig – but I don’t have either, so I just free-hand drilled the 1/4″ diameter hole.  I had bought an 18″ long drill bit at the hardware store that worked well. for the dowel – I am using a stainless steel piece of 1/4″ diameter threaded rod, cut to length after I’ve drilled the hole.  it is shown below, only partially inserted into the drilled hole.  it won’t be visible after I’ve filled the hole with epoxy.

again, I just mixed up some of the West System epoxy (which with the metered pumps is a breeze to get the ratios correct).  this time I didn’t add any filler (although I probably could have used the 404 for added strength), and used the dowel to insert as much as I could down into the drilled hole before placing the threaded rod in there for good.  I will use this same repair on the cracked Sunfish rudder head.

with the remainder of the epoxy I had mixed up, I added some 407 low-density fairing filler (the 404 sets up really hard and is difficult to sand, the 407 is softer and easier to sand into a nice finish).  the 407 filler is already a brown color, but I think I added some sawdust anyway.  I then just applied this to various small gouges and nicks on the various rudders and daggerboards to fill any spots as required.

after this has dried and hardened, I will sand the patched areas smooth, and do a final check on each board before the finishing process can begin.

I still have some work to do (dowels in the Sunfish rudder head, epoxy the Sunfish rudder pin holes to then re-drill, etc), but progress has been made.  now the weather has been crazy warm in Michigan this late winter(?) and early spring, so I’ve got to get in high gear to make sure the parts are ready for sailing as soon as possible.

small boat sailing in a lightning storm

Alan Glos who posts often at the Sunfish Forum passed along this article he had written a while back for Duckworks Magazine, and I thought I’d share it here as well.  he recounts sailing on Crystal Lake, an AMAZING lake in the northwest part of Michigan’s lower peninsula.  he was sailing on an old Super Porpoise, similar to a Sunfish, but slightly larger.  the article is “An Encounter with Lightning,” here are a few quotes:

On this particular day the wind was light and the atmosphere was uncharacteristically muggy. After an hour or so, I found myself completely becalmed near the center of the lake.

The calm persisted. I had a clear view toward the west side of the lake and to my horror I saw a classic line squall bearing down on me and my becalmed boat at an alarming rate of speed.

what do you think? was his method to minimize his risk of a lightning strike the best idea, or was there a better alternative?

But the important question was the lightning factor, specifically was I safer mostly submerged in the lake or by being in the lake was I more prone to the ill effects of a surface strike?