Fairing, sanding, and painting the deckhead

[vanilladuck]

A brief pause while you retrieve your jaw from the floor or keyboard...

In the midst of a major refit of running gear, I started removing the headliner on Rumour. Abhorred by a million and one rusted staples, a series of complex folds, and a lot of mold, I started thinking there's gotta be a better way to dress up the deckhead. So, off it came. What a mess.

I'm planning on fairing, sanding, and painting the deckhead. It should be easier to spot leaks and I can finish all the through-bolted gear with nice shiny stainless cap head nuts.

Anyone have any experience doing this on an Ericson? Photos and tips to share?

 

[RedDog]

View attachment 49631

A brief pause while you retrieve your jaw from the floor or keyboard...

In the midst of a major refit of running gear, I started removing the headliner on Rumour. Abhorred by a million and one rusted staples, a series of complex folds, and a lot of mold, I started thinking there's gotta be a better way to dress up the deckhead. So, off it came. What a mess.

I'm planning on fairing, sanding, and painting the deckhead. It should be easier to spot leaks and I can finish all the through-bolted gear with nice shiny stainless cap head nuts.

Anyone have any experience doing this on an Ericson? Photos and tips to share?

Wow!! You are a brave soul! That’s a lot of love you are pouring into Rumour! It’s going to be beautiful. Please post again showing the finished deck head.

 

[Slick470]

We stripped our v-berth a few years back due to a long term leak that had been hidden by the headliner. I keep bouncing back and forth with trying to put it back as it was, vs something similar but installed differently, or just fill, fair, and paint. I'm happy to follow along to see how yours turns out.

After stripping ours, I did sand everything down to remove all the stuck on glue and all the rough ends of the fiberglass. It is pretty obvious that Ericson never intended for the underside of the deck to ever see the light of day again and didn't put much effort in making it look clean so that bit of effort on my part made a big difference.

 

[Loren Beach]

We managed to mostly remove our headliner when re-bedding all of the deck fittings, Many many staples were involved. There is a thread here, back a little ways, of the new fabricated vinyl head liner on an O-34, sewn from a pattern, and reinstalled the factory method. Looked great to me and the owner was able to have/create zipper access to all backing plates and nuts.
This has the advantage of maintaining the maximum headroom inside, since the stock scheme has only a sheet of 1/4" foam above the headliner and the bolts were nipped off flush with the nuts.

We were able to flush-finish all of the new bolts when the deck gear went back on.

If I had my "druthers" I would have a panel-type of overhead, with a half inch of insulation above it, secured by varnished battens. But that would lower our usable headroom by about 1 to 1.5 inches, and I need every fraction of the present 6'2" of headroom in our interior.

(Count your blessings that EY did not copy Beneteau and Glue 100% area of their vinyl headliner up into place..... and then have it all fall down starting about 10 to 15 years later when their adhesive massively failed on many of their boats.
That invisible "fin" that EY sewed into place and then stapled to a batten was clever and effective. It was fussy to restore when we were finishing up, but if I can do it, any average duffer can do it.)

 

[G Kiba]

OMG Brian. It's a good thing you have time to work on the boat. Wait. Or maybe you have too much time to work on the boat? It looks like you are have fun anyways.

 

[vanilladuck]

Yea, perhaps Grant is right.. I might have *too* much time on my hands currently. But, it's fun. Labor of love for sure.

I bought a Festool Multi-Mode ROTEX RO 90 FEQ-Plus and a dust extractor. The ROTEX has two modes for material removal and final finishing with both round and delta pads. Thinking it will be perfect for the small spaces in the deckhead, corners, detail smoothing, etc. I think I can also use it to sand the mast for painting and varnish removal, etc.

I'm shopping for respirator, dust suits, QuikFair and some other bits. This work will have to fit between the other rigging work I have going on currently. Or after. Will definitely keep this thread updated with progress along the way. Thanks for the encouragement everyone!

 

[Prairie Schooner]

A couple brothers I knew bought an old Navy 44 to rehab. They'd sailed them back in the day. I got a tour as they were beginning work. It had a cool no-nonsense battleship aesthetic below, all gray, mil-spec breaker panels, placards, etc. I'm not suggesting you do that exactly, but it might be a fun exercise to rethink the vibe below on Rumour. A telecom / Apollo look? Sez the guy perched on the edge of the lazarette, procrastinating. Going back in. Respect.

 

[reginaldobaker]

The most difficult part of respirator-work for me is needing to shave to get a good seal! Stay safe with all the particulates, haven’t used an intentional dust extractor before so curious how it does with things

 

[windblown]

Bryan,
You’ve given other 32-3 owners a great view of what’s above the headliner. Thank you! Now that you got it all exposed, are your deck handrails secured by screws into the deck (as ours seem to be), or are they bolted through?

 

[vanilladuck]

Now that you got it all exposed, are your deck handrails secured by screws into the deck (as ours seem to be), or are they bolted through?

There is a 1x4 piece of lumber which is glued with super hardened construction adhesive at a ~45° angle facing inboard on each side of the deckhead. It's a centerpiece of headliner attachment as the cloth turns up to create a space for the interior cabin grab rails.

I started in with a mallet and chisel today to answer this question. Removed about a foot so far on the starboard side and haven't found any discernable through bolts. Will update again if I find some.

I attempted to remove the exterior handrails when I varnished them. I *think* I recall the fasteners being lag screws (no through bolts).

It's a fun trivia question though, because Ericson seemed to mix and match two techniques: lag screws and through-bolting with glassed in aluminum plates. I still have yet to find a single through bolt with washer and nut (except for winches and clutches, which were probably not original on Rumour). Mast deck plate, traveler on sea hood, cabin deck mounts, and interior grab rails all used aluminum plating glassed in and machine screws threaded into the plate. No shipwright worth their salt today would even consider such a thing with the availability of G10 and other backplating techniques.

 

[vanilladuck]

The most difficult part of respirator-work for me is needing to shave to get a good seal! Stay safe with all the particulates, haven’t used an intentional dust extractor before so curious how it does with things

Rut roh! My beard might make this problematic

 

[Gaviate]

Rut roh! My beard might make this problematic

Scuba diving, I sometimes use a dab of vasoline on my mustache to get a better seal with the mask skirt across my upper lip. If you test this, you may need a couple of dabs!

 

[Nick J]

I really like what this owner did:

E38 for sale in Comox, BC

Calibre Yachts Sales is offering a very clean-looking E38.

ericsonyachts.org

You would have to make some changes to make the panels easy to remove, but it's a good starting point. Utilitarian is good, but It may be a little out of place on an Ericson. Painting the cabin top also doesn't allow for insulation so condensation may become an issue. For context, I removed the headliner in my 25+ and never got around to replacing it before selling to the current owner (about 5 years without the liner). It functioned just fine and did make finding cabin top leaks easier. Here's a pic mid core repair:



Sanding overhead absolutely sucks and I had a similar setup to what you're planning to use.