Lake Michigan in a Dugout: Blue Heron Rehabilitation

As you may know, last summer we got our hands on a little fix up boat we're calling The Blue Heron. We've only just begun to get some major work done on her this summer.

And though the progress has been slow, we're just as excited about the possibilities as when she first arrived in my parents backyard. An all too familiar theme, it seems.

Anyway, most of the work time has been spent cleaning her out. We've probably already cleaned the girl about a million times so far.

Other than the usual surface damage you'd expect to find on a 26+ year old boat, Blue was hiding a little something on her beak.

What is it girl? Oh I see, there's a fist sized hole in your beak! Well good thing us girls like to play with power tools and adhesives.

Let's get to work. Always dressed for the occasion - masks, earplugs, and flannels.

NERD ALERT: Here was our plan for fixing this part of the boat.

We removed all previous patch work and loose edging and sanded the area with 50grit.

Then we took a piece of fiberglass from the removed patch and set it as our back wall. The creepy picture below shows Amy holding the piece. We punched a small hole in it, ran a string through it, and wrapped the other end of the string to a small stick. We don't have a picture of the next step, but we then applied quick set epoxy to the edges of the plate,put it through the boat hole, and pulled it towards the outside walls using the stick.

After we had a back wall to build from, we applied multiple layers of circularly cut fiberglass cloth, building up thickness to try to match the boat's natural outside wall. After the resin set, we sanded away the edges to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Then, it was Bondo time. We liberally applied the putty to fill in the uneven areas.

And then sanded again. And again. We love sanding...

While things were dryng throughout this process, we wanted to be productive by attempting to fill in some missing/rotting foam in the centerboard trunk. (The big pocket thing in the middle of the boat that holds the giant middle board thing in and out of the water. Let's not act like we know the terminlogy for everything either.)

We couldn't flip the boat at the time, so Amy set about her messy work from below.

Rotting, foamy mess.

But she makes it look so natural.

We were tipped off about using a product called Great Stuff, Window and Door Insulating Foam Sealant. Give it a good shake there, Ames.

Okay, calm down. (Doesn't that glare on the glasses give her that perfectly crazed look?)

Here's goes nothing.

From what we could tell, it will be a great product for us to use, but not great for applying from below.

Just about all of it ended up dripping off the boat and onto Amy and the ground. We plan to try again when we have the boat flipped on her belly again.

And so begins one of my favorite sequences of Amy. Her crawling for freedom from underneath the trailer. The thing from beneath the boat.

So. Awkard.

Sweet, sweet freedom!

Only a little dirty.

What a sport. Take a load off good buddy.

The first photographic evidence (in this post) that I was present for any kind of work. (Even though this is a pic of us wasting time goofing off while waiting for resin to dry.)

I thought this picture might also be a nice segway into our trip to the hardware store. We left for paint and got distracted by these fantastic sun hats. We'd buy them, but we'd like something with a little more brim if possible... Seriously though, we want more brim.

After shopping for a while, we decided to go with 9 different colors... Our bird will be the most beautiful bird in all the land! This is a sample of the pallet we'll be working with, but you will have to wait to see the full design until later.