Pleased to be able to repair damage to the bow of Alhambra. Damage caused during the Mankhut major typhoon.
Next task – shaping time.
Bow Teak repairs
Tag Archives: Wood Work
Bow Bedroom Bettering
I suppose the first thing to address is: is Bettering a pretend word?
I don’t know, I get it, and I bet you do. So we are all good.
This tale is about the bettering of Alhambra’s Bow Bedroom.
Not unusual on a boat are nasty termite annoyances. Sadly the Bow Bedroom became a mild casualty of termite lunacy.
A project to end the termite and repair the resulting damage began.
Naturally, this starts with termite extermination.
Thanks to Pest Guy and a nine-month plan, we have been able to stop the colony’s wood-eating frenzy.
Termite dining damaged wooden support structures underneath the Bow Port room floorboards. The feasting had also eaten away at the storage cabinet’s lower surface.
Though not massive damage, it was enough to become quite the challenge.
To help clarify my path forward I crafted a few repair sketches – thanks Noteability.
In addition to repairing the floor and wall the hull storage underneath the Bow bedroom required a tidy up.
We rearranged the stored content into 15 plastic storage boxes. Each with dehumidifying bags stashed inside.
Much better.
No longer weak 🙂
With the hole in the port side wall filled with fibreglass, sanded and repainted and the replacement underfloor support timber sealed firmly in place. It became time for new floorboard sections to be crafted and placed.
Painted, sealed and ready for new floorboards to be cut and placed.
Exciting to have the floor restored to a stable condition.
The termites had actually eaten the original boards.
Sun Hing Shing.
SO thankful to Eric from SHS.
I am pleased to show that the boards were cut, placed and varnished with three coats of International varnish / Satin finish.
It’s good to know that the corner section of the room has been returned to a quality level.
With that done it is time to move onto the room lighting, curtains and window sealant.
A little effort…
Some time with a heat gun, sander, elbow grease and things start to get better. Helping a friend tidy up an upper deck teak table. Getting there.
Guitar stand No 3 – best so far
Having a want for guitar stands to be situated in all sorts of locations in and around my boat. I dicided to make another one.
So off to Pinterest for some idea development.
With the ideas collated and sketched on the iPad in the brilliant app, Notability, I crafted a stencil to help mark required wood.
I happened to have a load of 3/8th laminated board available. Wanting a little more stability to the pieces I thought I’d double it’s thickness.
A little measuring, glueing, clamping and 24 hours later i had a stencil to cut out using my trusty old jig saw.
Pleased with the shape of the side panels that would hold the guitar, it was time to craft a centre support, fix the three pieces together, sand, seal with a thinners : varnish (75 : 25) mix and then decorate with the tiles from our fabulous floating neighbour Clare Kirk
I have become a clamp collector through working on wood projects. These handy little and large things are vital to making the processes a tad easier.
Clamped, sanded and completed.
Enjoying the blue tiles.
The only thing added was some more blue tiles, clear pads to protect and stop guitar slipping about, and some felt feet pads.
Done 🙂
Best stand yet.
Teak sealant – product testing Pt 1
I am aiming to clarify which I consider a better Teak sealant.
The contestants are:
One: Mattco Teak Sealer
Two: Semco Teak Sealer
Three: Star Brite Teak Sealer
The Mattco product is the cheapest of the three products (HKD 298). The Star brite being almost twice the price of Mattco product, and not surpisingly the Semco sits in the middle.
I am not going to simply launch myself onto the idea that the most costly will be the better product.
I have used the Star brite product on many occasions and it is indeed a very effective product. I used the darker of the teak sealer products and it amost felt like paint. Even the caulk was sealed, and coloured.
At half (+) the cost of Star brite, I am curios to see how the Semco and Mattco compare.
I have 2 teak decks that I am going to use as a direct comparison.
One, Stern entrance deck
Two, Stern lower shelf deck
So here we go.
May the first, twenty twenty marks three years since I resealed Alhambra’s stern entrance Teak deck.
It’s time to do it again. The difference I am hoping for this time is improved work efficiency and product effectiveness.
The process will be:
- sanding,
- caulk removal/replacement,
- sanding,
- washing
- sealing.
For sanding, I am using a Makita BO5031 Orbital Sander with
60 & 150 grit 5″ sanding discs, and lots of them.
With absolute respect for safety, I wear a full face respirator with earplugs.
After sanding for nearly 2 hours – it becomes a weird space… and a relief to get the mask OFF.
At this stage, we (my wife has been helping 🙂 have sanded and removed the cracked and leaky caulk from the Stern entrance deck.
Next step is to recaulk.
I will update when both are done 🙂
SML – Upcycled trunk
Another Typhoon Mankut upcycle project. A 17″ height stump that’ll become a perfect stool for playing the guitar on, or just having a cuppa tea. I’m wanting to experiment a bit with swirling epoxy resin colors together, so that’ll be one end. My better half is conjuring up a design for the other end.
Below’s the stump as cut by the government, post typhoon carnage. Bark and odd angle included.
The stump as collected from Wong Chunk Hang, next to sports stadium.
Between dragging the log home and onto Alhambra and this writing, nearly 18 months, all I’ve done is remove the bark and let it dry out a bit.
As the globe is currently being threatened by the virus Covid-19, Hong Kong schools have been required to shut for an extended period of time. As a long term employee of the Hong Kong international School as Technology Coach / teacher I am included in the virtual learning adventure all schools are having to action.
I’m not going to go into that bar to say that we are encouraging students to get involved in working on a project of personal interest. Something that they can develop over time whilst developing knowledge and skill plus.
We have been operating this opportunity named ‘Self Motivated Learning’ [SML] for 5 years on site. With the virus keeping students operating remotely, we are encouraging student to make this happen at home.
Modeling the process, this project will be my SML.
Onwards.
The stump after having bark removed and drying out a bit.
The log sat at an odd angle so I had to level the end surfaces so it would sit flat and stand as upright as seemed best. The vertical alignment of the stump is a bit of a gamble and I feel something that the grain/texture of the tree impacts.
Working without a workbench and mass of structural tools to help secure things is a time eater. I have to always create make shift structures to support an secure items in order to get what I need to done.
A lot of scraps of wood help.
The make shift work bench and router guide Bob
Having worn out my previous router…. I used my new ‘Makita 3709 Trimmer / Router‘ to level the top surfaces flat. Loads of sawdust all over the place.
The Makita 3709 Trimmer/Router is noisy and dangerous, spinning at 30,000 revolutions per minute it decimates the products it comes into contract with. I ensure I am protected with full face respiration, ear protection and gloves. Safety being a major consideration – every time.
Saw dust city and pleasingly flat surfaces
With the surfaces closer to being flat now I can get on with the next steps. Those being to sand and varnish the sides, fine tune the flatness of the surfaces, route out the pools on each end, wait for the resin and confirm color and content design.
I’ve ordered 3KG of Epoxy Resin from Alibaba.com. A variety of color dyes have also been ordered.
I am sourcing my resin and dye from Lihsi Technology Co Ltd
More to follow.
Tree renovation time
Severe Typhoon Vincente, July 20, 2012 smashed into Hong Kong at over 150 km/h, costing a heafty sum of cost $351 million HKD.
Vincente was recorded as being the strongest Typhoon to have stormed the city in over 10 years, it’s pathway of devastation included the falling of some 8,800 trees..
Yep, we weathered the storm, from our noisy and swaying 21st floor Baguio Villa apartment, stayed calm and carried on.
Hong Kong’s typhoon’s frequently leave a trail of tree devastation, to which the HK Government set to tidying p and chopping fallen trunks into manageable logs. Usually carelessly chainsawed to around 12″. Naturally the diameter’s vary.
Pokfulam’s Victoria Rd lost a few of its road side trees, resulting in small collections of tree stumps scattered alongside fall sites.
I went out with my kids and picked up six lovely stumps, and this where this project began.
Being an enthusiastic guitarist and being lucky enough to posses a few guitars. I like to have place guitars so that they are easy to access. And there lies the need for another Guitar stand project.
Once again Notability holds my sketches and plans for the stump. I plan to craft the tops and front of the piece into some interesting shapes. Not sure what that looks like at this point. It will materialize when and as it does. 
It is always a challenge to work on my projects as I don’t actually have a workshop and working onboard a boat presents it’s own set of challenges.
Think spirit level and resin projects – gotta laugh?
It’s very lovely onboard and there’s lots of tea, but the workbench options are limited. I’m not going to place a great big work bench in the middle the boat.
So it’s creative holding solutions for now, that including my dad’s home made clamp.
Thanks Dad – very cool 🙂 ❤️ 
With a large center chunk removed I can now start crafting the slots that’ll hold the guitar. As with my previous Guitar stand project I’m thinking a ‘loud colour’ velvet interior. 
Much work to be done and one hope the cracks don’t present aa problem along the way.
More to follow, and here’s to trying 🙂
Shaped and sanded to 600.
Shaped, sanded down to 600 grain and teak oiled, the old plank of teak gets a new life, as a guitar stand.
Being a keen guitarist, having guitar stands close by helps me to keep the playing alive. A great treat.
Looks neat too.
Best get on a do some practise…
Guitar stand games
Many moons ago, a long term friend offered me a variety of teak, salvaged from a sunken boat. Imagining all sorts of possibilities, I took loads of it. Below’s the plank this post is referring to.
Pinterest inspired me to look into building a Guitar stand. Having played the guitar since the late 70s, I have few and play daily. Having another guitar stand available seemed like a great idea and a good use for that plank of wood that’s been planking around the boat from place to place. Below’s the style I decided to go for.
Drawing the main column’s curves, stabilising foot shape and guitar holder structure directly onto the plank, clarified the Jig Saw’s cut path.
Knowing that Teak is a hard wood and can be quite the thing to cut, I choose to load the jig saw with a wide toothed blade (Bosch T144D). A load of saw dust later, I had the pieces I needed to make the stand. 
My next step has been to join, glue, sand, shape and stain. Note the cat that actually thinks it’s helping out. Hmmm.
Must say that i’m happy with the support foot – it looks cool and it’s not even at its final shape yet. I’m also enjoying working on a project that requires attention to finer details. Not really like sanding a deck…
Resin River 1
The plan started with a very good mate of mine offering me Teak from a container in the back of garage up in Yuen Long. “A boat load”. True to his word, there was a heap of old Teak bits and pieces of varying sizes and shapes that at some stage were a boat. Not sure what happened to the boat. That’s a different story and not mine. So, onwards.
With a sprout of an idea to rebuild our living room coffee table being quietly fed. I loaded a variety of pieces of Teak into my car, very careful not to trash the seats, and headed home.
Two of the pieces being seriously heavy and on the large side. measuring an uneven 48″ length x 18″ width and a grand 3″ thick. The two pieces will become a Resin River Coffee Table.
To clarify, a resin river table can be as visibly fabulous as the image below and provides a creative opportunity to join scrappy edged bits of wood together with a interesting feature between.
My plan will be to create a river similar. Not sure about the color yet but the overall concept remains similar. Also not sure I’ll make the outer edges so uniform. Time will tell.
With the two pieces onboard the project begins. My first task being to clean up the Teak bits and see what they look like. As shown below there was quite a bit of rotting edge to remove. A simple hammer, chisel and bastard file worked well. The scraggy edge to become the banks of the resin river, so the more scraggy the better. 
Needing to clean up the surfaces I set to it with a variety of tools. Starting with an orbital sander @ 60 grain was fine but a waste of time as all it was doing was sanding years of dirt.
So onto a Black and Decker Belt sander with 100 grain. My experience with my belt sander to date has been that it is hard graft with minimal results. Actually think I would be OK if it fell overboard…
Frustrated with the Belt sander I put the my Bosch plainer to work. Brilliant. This took a controllable amount of surface off the planks showing me the state of the wood. I am amazed at how much dirt was removed from the surface. Gross.
After a few hours of plaining, the state of the Teak pieces has become a little clearer. I reckon this’ll be great when completed.
I have placed a few enquiries around looking for 2 part, 100% transparent, export resin and shall share what I find.
I have decided to post multiple updates on this project in palace of one at the end.
So, more later…
Dean Lea 