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Post by pipemma on Apr 9, 2019 11:02:02 GMT
I've never degreased Iroko before varnishing (advice on t'internet varies wildly). Teak on the other hand I would investigate what to use as a degreaser. We used to have a wooden boat, built mostly from Iroko. Some of the brightwork I stripped back to bare and saturated with a clear pentrating epoxy sealer (CPES) before varnishing. On the mast (obviously not Iroko) having saturated with CPES I then hot-coated 6-8 coats of 2-pack poly varnish in one day (before the CPES had fully cured - you get a chemical bond between the CPES and the 2-pack varnish). The results were fantastic and incredibly durable - not a cheap solution but worth it for the time & effort that was going into the prep.
Don't think we're going to have time for CPES (not sure where we'd even get it? standard DIY place? How essential is it to thin the first coat of varnish? I totally forgot about that when buying the yacht varnish, and would have to drive potentially an hour each way to buy thinner. I'm using Hempel gloss, which is my favourite anyway and definitely not as viscous as some varnishes
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Post by ForGrinsToo on Apr 9, 2019 19:50:54 GMT
I am painfully aware of the alignment problem, and don't own (or even know where to borrow or rent) a planer large enough to handle the resulting plank. And there is always some thickness variation in the boards.
I've read that for degreasing, acetone is better than white spirit (paint thinner in the U.S.), which is better than surgical spirit (99% isopropanol). The problem with acetone is that it evaporates very rapidly, so treat very small areas while working in a very well ventilated area. The isopropanol and acetone volatility lead to a lot more fumes. All are highly flammable, too. Degreasing is strongly recommended by coating manufacturers for both iroko and teak.
Hempel's thinner is a mixture of xylene, n-butanol, ethylbenzene, and solvent naphtha (petroleum). The proportions are proprietary. But you can get both xylene and solvent naptha at your local DIY store.
Keep us posted.
Geoff
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Post by mikebz on Apr 10, 2019 10:38:55 GMT
How essential is it to thin the first coat of varnish? I totally forgot about that when buying the yacht varnish, and would have to drive potentially an hour each way to buy thinner. I'm using Hempel gloss, which is my favourite anyway and definitely not as viscous as some varnishes
I doubt you'd get CPES at a standard DIY place - I bought it online from here. This would be a bit over the top for a cockpit table which is covered when you are not on board or not using it anyway, but IME it really is good. Hot-coating 2-pack poly within the time recommended on the tin means each coat forms a chemical bond with the previous one - much better than letting it go thoroughly hard and then sanding it back to get a mechanical-only key. I'm not convinced that thinning the first coat makes much difference - again this subject is a bit like anchors... The paint/varnish manufacturers love to sell you their specia£ £hinners but for one-pot products I've always used white spirit - No. 1 thinners is commonly reckoned to be white spirit anyway (e.g. www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?235321-Is-white-spirit-the-same-as-thinners-no-1).
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Post by pipemma on Apr 10, 2019 10:43:29 GMT
Putting the border on the first leaf. This took a while as we were working out exactly how to do it; hopefully the other leaf will go more quickly
I had to take little while to sand the ends of the panels back to make them as even as possible for putting the end pieces on.
I had originally planned on doing the rest of the sanding after the border pieces were fitted but changed my mind and sanded first. Mostly a very good idea but I made a slight tactical error by rounding the top edges before the strips were fitted. I had originally planned on the adjacent strips abutting seamlessly, but having rounded the edges all the way along, of course, this was a bit of a fail! However, making a virtue of a mistake, I rounded the abutting end too and have turned it into a decorative feature
First border glued & clamped:
And the second. Rather than mitre joints, we've decided to make simplicity decorative too and overlapped every corner:
Thusly, and screwed all the border pieces on too, using brass screws - again to make a decorative feature out of making our lives easy:
Border on, all glued & screwed. I don't want to end up with bruises all over my thighs, so I've jigsawed off the corners (marked up in this pic):
Here's the detail - corners jigged off, all edges rounded with the sander:
And here's the finished leaf, all ready for varnishing:
Just another leaf and the centre section to go!
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Post by rene460 on Apr 10, 2019 11:53:41 GMT
Hi Pipemma, you are doing a really great job on that table.
Even the professional shops do not always get the boards exactly level and some cross planing is sometimes necessary. So what you have done is not unusual and coming up well. I had a joinery shop make glue joints with a spindle moulder, basically an industrial bench type router, for a dining room table and they did not get the boards level. Also their planer was only 30 inches wide so could not accomodate the assembled tabletop. I ended up cross planing with a hand plane and sanding.
I think you you can be very proud of what you have achieved. It will look great when it is finally installed on the boat.
Rene460
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Post by ForGrinsToo on Apr 10, 2019 21:40:47 GMT
Yes, this is looking very nice! Geoff
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Post by pipemma on Apr 11, 2019 17:07:38 GMT
Construction complete!
The second leaf was identical to the first, but it went a bit quicker now we'd worked out exactly what we were doing with it and how, so I shan't bore you with a repeat for that one.
The centre section was next and slightly different from the leaves because one end is shaped. Here are the 2 long sides and end attached, glued & screwed and clamped overnight: The masking tape is marking the dimensions for the diagonals to be cut: This was the scary bit! Since just 10 small corner cuts had blunted 2 jigsaw blades (only just got through the last ones and then not without the jigsaw jumping like billy-o), I was rather trepidatious but himself was confident in his circular saw and it came out fine: However, we did notice on the final pieces we cut that even that blade was going terribly blunt. Next was the diagonal border pieces: And finally the end piece: An incredible amount of sanding involved, rounding corners and edges, tying in adjacent pieces, adjusting levels so the borders all fitted nicely (that goes for the entire project): And lastly a couple of drain holes so the table shouldn’t fill up with water - 9 mm wood drill bit finished with a countersinking bit and sanded edges: Here’s the finished centre section: And the two completed leaves: In the meantime I was able to put the first coat of thinned varnish on the underneath of the leaves: Having brought them all indoors overnight, we can start to see what they’ll look like once fitted: Just the best part of a week’s varnishing to go now! And I’m expecting the fitting on the boat to take at least a day as we will have to dismantle the old centre section, sort out and run electrics, fit the hinges & brackets etc
Some final thoughts on the choice of wood and its properties: I'm very happy with the aesthetics of the iroko, absolutely no regrets on choosing it over teak. As a hard wood, it thankfully wasn't as tough to work with as I had feared it might be. However, as "advertised", it's an absolute bugger on saw blades; they get blunted after just a handful of cuts and I could have done with 3 or even 4 jigsaw blades (and I'd bought 2 hardened steel ones) for just 11 x 1.5-inch cuts (10 corners plus my trial piece) and a space blade for the circular saw. Strangely it wasn't as hard on sander papers. On the random orbital sander, I went through 1 and a bit sandpaper disks of 240 grit, and both 60 grit discs have life left in them, but keep falling off the sander as the velcro isn't holding any more. On the mouse sander, I went through 2 triangles of 40 grit and 2 of 220 grit. And I used 1 x 60 grit and 1 x 40 grit on the vibrator tool when smoothing the glued joints after gluing the boards together.
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Post by MalcolmP on Apr 11, 2019 17:55:29 GMT
Really great work, looking forward to seeing the installed photos
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Post by ForGrinsToo on Apr 11, 2019 19:17:37 GMT
However, we did notice on the final pieces we cut that even that blade was going terribly blunt. [/div][/quote] Iroko, much more so than teak, is noted for having silica (aka: sand) deposits. That's kind of tough on cutting devices, but I had no idea it would be as severe as you have encountered. Very nice work! Geoff
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Post by pipemma on Apr 16, 2019 13:34:23 GMT
Geoff, himself was using his jigsaw yesterday making a plant rack out of old pallets and said he found it was jumping all over the place regardless of the amount of pressure put on it so maybe the iroko wasn't as bad on the jigsaw blades as I originally thought and the jigsaw is just f00ked (technical term).
A little update as this is the slow bit. Here’s the varnished backs of the 3 sections - 6 coats (first coat thinned slightly) & 1 tin of varnish down Despite masking the sides, the varnish ran a bit so I spent an hour this morning scraping off the runs/drops while they were still soft-ish, then wiped them with thinner on a cloth and finally sanded them again. Currently still visible if you know to look for them but I’m confident that after 6 coats of varnish there will be no evidence of them left Making a start on the first coat for the tops: And I was caught in the act of finishing up the first (thinned) coat
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Post by pipemma on May 1, 2019 16:29:55 GMT
So the time has come to fit the table. First remove the old table Then fit the new centre section. Turned out to be much more fiddly than expected, a case of Things Just Not Lining Up by a fraction of a mm, even when measured extremely (too?) accurately and using the handle as a template. Required some extra drilling out of holes but this was the result: Strangely the bit that worked best was drilling out the recess for the aft handle: The leaves turned out to be a total PITA. Screwing on the hinges was not a problem, except the supplied brass screws were about as strong as a limp dishrag and had to be replaced But the brackets... oh the brackets! We used Roca Rakego which are/will be brilliant - strong, functional and beautiful. But a total bitch to fit.
The trouble with them is they come with absolutely zero instructions. Obviously the 2 ends need to be in very specific positions to allow the leaves a) to be raised to 90 degrees and b) lowered to vertical. After a good half hour of Googling, I found a diagram showing where the bases need to be fitted, allowing for 4cm from the upright to the hinges. Unfortunately our uprights are different widths, one was 6cm to the hinges, the other 3 cm. Bolting to rounded chrome pipe also didn't help. So a lot of trial and error was involved finding exactly the right height on the upright. You'd think that having done that, you could just screw the leaf end on while vertical, but no! Ended up having to screw those on in horizontal position. And you can't just set the spirit level at horizontal - it has to be raised a little because the leaves then sort of "seat" into position when released onto the locked brackets. Long story short - lots of sweat, cursing and almost tears and 6 hours later, 4 brackets are in place and both leaves are horizontal.
Finally resulting in this:
The white box is going to be replaced - we're collecting some marine ply tomorrow to make a bespoke box to accommodate the binoculars, chart(s) & pilot book that used to get dumped into the moulded bins in the old table, and to fit the 12V socket and light switch into the sides. The old horrid "cockpit table light" is in the bin, a mate on the pontoon cut off the old steel plate it was on, and I'm going to fit LED strips under the table. You might also notice I need to do a final sand and coat of varnish - would you bloody believe it, the last coat of varnish at home bubbled (as did the 3rd coat, too many extremes of temperature I think)! Watch this space for some final finished pics
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Post by MalcolmP on May 1, 2019 16:49:22 GMT
Brilliant, looks amazing, you must be very pleased with your resourcefulness
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Post by rene460 on May 2, 2019 4:51:34 GMT
Hi Pipemma, a beautiful job on that table. You will be proud of that every sunset, as well as in between.
rene460
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Post by pipemma on May 2, 2019 19:27:06 GMT
The bespoke box for the binos etc. It’s had it’s first coat of varnish but the pic is rubbish so I’ll show you the finished article once it’s fitted
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Post by braders on May 3, 2019 19:09:54 GMT
Looks awesome!!
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Post by pipemma on May 4, 2019 11:05:41 GMT
Done!! (Apart from the final sand and varnish, but that’s more into maintenance now ) Here’s the bespoke box for the binoculars, fitted And with an add-on at the side to accommodate the 12V socket and switch Here it is with the intended contents And it has the added benefit of providing extra protection for the plotter And here the final touch In fact the LED strips are so bright we don’t need an overhead light😵 In a way it makes the last three days spent mostly like this pretty much worthwhile 😉
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Post by rene460 on May 4, 2019 11:29:00 GMT
Hi Pipemma,
Congratulations on a beautiful job. Amazing what can be done with wood and patience and an artistic vision of what might be achieved.
rene460
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Post by rudds67 on May 8, 2019 17:30:53 GMT
Dam buddy nice job...The stock table absolutely right Is bad.Do you plan on putting a box or something in the middle like the old one?I I was thinking about taking off the old table and doing some faux paint work to make it look like Teak ...This is definitely an option on the table now...How many hours you think you have into it?
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Post by pipemma on May 9, 2019 6:03:45 GMT
No, we thought about the centre bins, even considered getting the steel guy to make a replacement but what did we put in there? Chart, pilot book, phones, clothes pegs, hats. Well, the first 3 are accommodated in the bespoke box I made that sits over the chart plotter - and better protected than before. Clothes pegs have no need to be in the cockpit except when in use and hats should be on a head or in a cabin! i.e. the bins encouraged laziness. So we decided not to spoil the gorgeous wood. We also have the option to do another similar bespoke box on the other end - and may yet do so for water bottles.
In terms of work - what really took the time was the waiting for glue and varnish to dry. In terms of actual work, I dunno really - we're guessing about 3 days actual work for the construction of the table and another 3 hours for the bino box? But with the drying time the table was 10 days-2weeks and 24 hours or so for the bino box. Fitting the table was a day for the centre section and another couple of hours to install the leaves on their hinges and 6 hours to fit the locking brackets.
If you're considering taking the table off, watch out for the cables running up the aft handle (himself is chuffed to bits that he managed to drill 10-12 holes in those steel uprights without hitting them!) and we found that the top bits were also glued/sikaflexed onto the table top
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Post by robert1 on Jan 13, 2022 13:22:35 GMT
Vortex is an outstanding pair of binoculars. Crystal clear, easy to use, and light weight. This by far the best pair I have ever used. Can’t tell how impressed I am with these. I have owned a lot of good to average binoculars but these are in another class. These binos are awesome! Image is clear and high definition and for the price it’s perfect.
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