USEFUL TOOLS: PAINTERS POINTS

Because of the cold water temperatures I've been putting off the launching of BIANKA this year. So I've been doing a lot of maintenance items like varnishing and touching up some of the wood trim on board. Much easier when the boat is on solid ground anyway. Because one normally can only put varnish or paint on one side of an item it takes two days to do both sides of say a wood trimmed screen hatch. But, one can also speed things up and do a coat a day if one uses Painters Points.


These neat little plastic pieces allow you to not only raise an item you need to paint off the surface so you can paint all the way to the bottom without it sticking to what's underneath it.  But, you can also do one side a flat piece and then using the points to support the piece put a coat on the other side of the item. This allows you to put a coat on the whole piece in one day. The Painters Points can hold up to 200 lbs. I don't have anything nearly that heavy that I will be varnishing on board. But, even the small items I do have to maintain are done much faster without waiting an extra day for one side to dry. They also stack nicely for storage and don't take up a lot of room when not in use. Which is important on a boat. They came in very useful in varnishing the forward overhead screen hatch:

The points can be arranged to best support the item you are painting or varnishing:

I also used them when putting fresh coats of Cetolon the boarding ladder steps:

In short if you do a lot of refinishing on board these Painters Points come in very handy and can help speed up your projects.
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A BELUGA WHALE EPIPHANY

Coming back from the Exumas cruise I had good intentions to get BIANKA splashed as soon as possible. Until I heard of some unusual visitors in Long Island Sound. Three Beluga Whales where feeding and playing around in various harbors on Long Island Sound. Since these creatures normally reside in Arctic waters having them in the local area is a reminder that the cold temperatures of the past brutal winter are still leaving their mark on the local waters. So that I might not be able to start swimming off the boat soon.  I'm now thinking there really is no rush to get  launch the boat and get out to the mooring until things warm up a bit. I'll continue on my various brightwork projects for another week or so. Trimming with paint brushes is always better when the boat is not moving about anyway.

TOUCHING UP THE HANDRAILS PLAN A & PLAN B

Having spent some time removing, re-bedding and refinishing BIANKA's handrails back in 2011. It was time to do a little touch up. Like most painting and varnishing projects prepping the area takes longer than the actual brush work. So in keeping with my desire to use what you have and recycling things wherever possible I cam up with what I thought would be a cunning plan to prep the area around the handrails. I'd use a patterned piece to used shrink wrap to fit under the handrails to catch any drips. I could also reuse the patterned shrink wrap in the future too. So I cut a long strip of recycled shrink wrap and laid it over the handrail: