The Alacrity 19 mission continues
I bought a gallon of nice blue oil based paint after sanding the entire top side with an orbital sander. Taped off the lines and started to get some color on this baby. I was in a good mood when I started really. I’ve been working hard on this project when I get some time. That’s one of the reasons that I haven’t been writing much lately. Anyway, So I get everything ready and start painting and what happens next just horrifies me. The paint is going on terribly. There are air bubbles all through it and the fibers from the roller seem to be coming off and sticking in the paint. REAL BAD! Like a trooper I continue, hoping things will smooth out and I can go back over it later, but no such luck. The entire paint job turned out that way. Sure, from 20 feet away, we can all see the vision that I saw when I bought this boat. It’s going to look good at some point, but not anytime soon I can assure you.
Now walk up on it. This is the worst paint job I’ve ever done, and what’s worse, it’s the worst paint job I’ve ever seen. It’s embarrassing. A six year old could have done better. All those bubbles and fibers are stuck in the paint and to add insult to injury, I think every deer fly in Juniata county came to land in my fresh paint, got stuck and died in it. Just imagine my chagrin. I guess I’ll just have to wait for this to dry for a few days and start the sanding process again. This paint was nice and thick. It’ll make a good primer I guess. I’ll sand it smooth again with fine paper and spray it next time and see if that works out any better.
So, from a distance, you all can start to see what I saw when I bought this tub. I have faith that it will turn out to be a decent boat in the end. You see, I hate to fail, but honestly, I need to back up a step or to and do a few things before I continue this effort. I don’t even know if this thing floats yet. It has hollow keels. From the factory, it came with lead ballasted keels. Someone cut those offf at some point and glassed these water ballast keels on it. I’m going to float this boat and fill the keels with concrete, balance everything out and sail her like that a few times. If she proves herself to be stable and seaworthy, I’ll continue the labor of love of the cosmetic makeover, but the next step absolutely has to be to get her in water and make sure that all this is worth it.