Her Barest Bottom

Yes, Abake has bared all.  But, she's had a little help.  At the end of the week, she had her bottom blasted, taking away many, many layers of paint.  "It was really hard paint," we were told, "and there's a lot of bottom there" we also heard.  But the team from Chesapeake Blasting were professional and couldn't have done a better job.  Now she has the cleanest bottom she's had maybe since she came out of the factory in 1980!

Bottom painted and bottom bared:

And if you want to see what it looked like while it was happening, here is the tented work area with someone inside working (notice the puffy sides) and what one of the blasters wears to do his job.

We were really impressed with these guys -- not only does Abake look great, there was no residue to be found in the marina.  They are definitely one of the preferred subcontractors!

Our next step is to prep the bottom before painting her with a barrier coat, and eventually with ablative paint.  We're on a schedule now, so hopefully good weather will coincide with our schedules.  Extra high tides will be early May and early June, and that's when we'll have to launch Abake.  She draughts too much for any normal day on the creek.

Patina Vs Paste

With the brass window frames having cleaned up beautifully, Mike is determined to clean all the brass.  With the teak decks weathered, I kind of preferred the matching weathered look (patina) on the dorades, but he wanted shiny brass.  Since the polishing wheel wouldn't work well on the dorades, we looked for alternative methods.  From the web, Mike tried the ketchup idea and we found where it was a little thick, it seemed to clean off the patina.  Mind you, the brass stilll needed polishing, but it was a big help.  So, being a little thicker acid, we decided to try tomato paste (which we can use in the future no matter where we are).  Here you'll see the dorade have had ketchup rinsed, lathered, and repeated (with tomato paste).

Then we applied the paste right to the patina version and voila!  We had good results.  Here are the before and during pictures.  (The patina is the greenish coating on the brass that is caused by oxidation.)  We'll have to post the final picture later.  I guess we forgot to take one.  You'll see it after the insides are painted!