Shining Up The Pearl

This weekend was the final push for getting the butyl taping done before we once again need The Pearl to be seaworthy.  Fortunately it was a gorgeous day, and with many hands on deck we managed to get a lot accomplished.  

 First thing Erik did was set to work removing the other drip edge.  Thankfully this one was easy.  No black goo, or major work to be done on that side.  

 this is what it looks like under that drip edge.  The 60 year old butyl tape was not looking so good.  It had to all come off.

 so we scraped.....














                      and scraped...


                                                                         

 and scraped some more...  this was the drip edge itself being carefully scraped to remove it all. 


That all went smoothly and relatively quickly so I talked Erik into giving me a few window frames to start polishing up.

With her rear window removed I attempted to keep the junk out, but all the butyl tape scraping around the edges was messy.  Guess I should have taped off the window first...  I would say you live and learn, but I just jump into things no matter how many times I've learned the lessons...  Impatience wins every time...

this one's favorite job is swabbing the decks, and just about anything else she can reach.  Here she is polishing up Backstage.  We're not even started on Backstage yet...   

 Meanwhile Erik was replacing the tape on the side.  Here it is looking all fresh and new.

this is her front window.  I had hoped to get to it last weekend, but we ran out of time.   So we removed the eyebrow,  unscrewed about a thousand screws, and removed it.  More scraping and taping ensued. 

 I have no idea what this stuff was on the back window.  I attempted to scrape as much as I could off, but it was like asphalt or something, and some parts of it wouldn't budge.  

 One of the crew scrapes the actual window edges.

and at last the drip edge is done and replaced.  

 I neglected to take pictures of the difficult messy part of our day.  Partly because my fingers went numb and I thought my arms were going to fall off.  But here is the result of a heck of a lot of scrubbing those window parts with steel wool.  They had been previously painted silver instead of cleaned, so it took at least twice as long to get them to this state as it would have without the paint removal.  It wasn't til the end of the day when Erik came to help polish and commented that there must have been an easier way to deal with the paint....   

So we finished that up as best we could.  I was exhausted and he had no patience for sitting there scrubbing, so the front window did not get as shiny as these.

and the rear window, all shined up and with the screen fixed is put back in place with new tape around here as well.

he also managed to get to making some temporary replacement jalousies for one of the side windows which was missing a couple of them.  For now it'll do.

And finally, as evening approached, and most of the crew had mutinied and jumped ship the new front window went back in.  

On Sunday we tidied up a bit, and put all the gear from our last trip in their storage places. And it's amazing what a clear window can do for one's outlook.  At least a few of the crew rested in the sun in that window, one even took a nap.  

She's coming together nicely!  Next time I'll have to post pics of her cabin.  We've really got her in good shape and are looking forward to a beautiful, campy summer getting together with new Vintage Trailer friends.  Join us if you can.