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Sunday 16 September 2012

I'm the guy with the bitumen quiff!

We are just back from our blacking expedition, and we are both completely knackered!
I've also managed black my hair, hence the bitumen quiff.

Nice to meet Zayna & Phil (NB Cheeky B?)
(Who we've spoken to on the Canalworld Forum)



 First job was to wash the grease spots left when the surveyor measured the steel thickness, we used white spirit.

 A new set of sacrificial anodes was fitted to Freyja

 Glenda, sitting down on the job

 So, she got her own back by catching me lying down on the job!
If you paint under the stern before you paint the stern sides and stern tube, you too will get a 'bitumen quiff'!!!! HoHum, another valuable lesson learned!

Christina's stern looking nice and shiny
Here's a good tip, scrape and paint the weed hatch BEFORE you black  around the stern tube, so you don't get a load of rust chips sticking to your newly applied blacking! DOH!

De-rusted and blacked (but don't black the top and handles if you want to paint it later)

 Horrible black sticky stuff that gets everywhere

 The contraption that Aqueduct marina used to haul our boats out and back in again

How good were my estimates?

So, we bought 27.5 litres of bitumen and found we needed approximately 5 litres per coat for each boat (55 & 53 foot)
The B&Q tungsten scraper was excellent for digging the rust flakes and bubbles out of the pitted areas, but don't be tempted to tap them with the scraper, as the blades are very brittle and expensive at £7.18 each! Use a small hammer to chip flakes and bubbles.
The paper overalls were great, worn over old clothes, as the bitumen can soak through. But watch out for the sizes, which were on the small side, large being more like medium.
I used my safety glasses when scraping and when lying underneath painting under the stern.
 But we didn't use the pair I bought for Glenda.
We didn't use the rollers at all.
The B&Q 5" flat shed & fence brushes were great for the sides and cheap
The B&Q 5" flat masonry brush was great for dusting off after scraping.
The best buy was the B&Q round masonry brush which was worth it's weight in gold, great for cutting in around the tunnel bands and for working black into little nooks and crannies.

You'll need a lot of latex gloves, workshop tissues, old towels or rags and white spirit. And, apparently, Baby oil! As this is the best thing to get bituminastic paints off!

We have almost 10 litres of bitumen left.