Having spent the better part of the morning enjoying the beautiful summer day at the harbor wall, Plan473 had to return home to spend the afternoon repairing. Again. If major rust control did not happen soon, we will be living in piles of rust.
Some of the repairs are due to design flaws such as all of the window hatches. The window hatches are made square tubing and conex paneling as seen more clearly in post What Light! Hatches then fit tightly around the window openings to secure against hurricane winds. Conex panels are corrugated. Corrugated panels with square tubing makes for water pockets. Water pockets makes for rust pockets. Rust pockets leads to rust holes. Rust holes lead to unsecured hatches. Unsecured hatches leads to hurricane damage.
To alleviate the water pockets, small 1/8" holes were drilled in the panels to allow for drainage. The Planner is confident these small holes will not affect the integrity of the hatch covers during a hurricane. Hopefully, this theory will not be tested anytime in the next near future.
Once drilled, the rust and scale were sandblasted off and red primer was applied. The Kid's Box only has three windows so his box repairs were easily completed. The Work Box on the other hand....
My box, the Work Box was not in the best condition when purchased last March. There was already come major scale concerns and lots of areas that needed to be stripped and repainted. Well, that was last March and time at the Salt Capitol City of the World has lead to even more scale and more rusty areas.
A sand blaster was used to quickly remove the rusty areas with ease. Many tools could have been used, but with rust in rusty environments, it is critical to remove corrosive rust before repainting otherwise the rusty spot will continue to rust under the fresh coat of paint. So with pitted rust, such as the Work Box contained, a sand blaster was the tool of choice.
Besides being quick, it does a better job than any hand sander and is easier too. Easy is better as there is lots and lots to do. Working around the door was easy as there were not areas of thick scale. The sides of the box, where yet again the panel meets the tubing frame, was all together a different story.
Scale. Lots and lots of thick corrosive, detrimental to box lifespan, scale. To save on sand media for the blaster, the Planner used a scaler to remove the scale. No imaginative thought for that tool name. Scalers, are a pneumatic tool with a bunch of tiny rods that vibrate back and forth and about a thousand RPM a second. Very effective. Better than a chip and hammer. Trust me, we tried that before the scaler. Maybe if I had all the time in the world and no electricity. Maybe. So with the scaler in hand, the Planner went off to remove scale. Went off to create more work as it turns out.
Full disclosure, this thick scale was the reason repairs were started. There was just now way scale this thick had not worked its way down into the core of the frame work. Holes to be repaired are work but water in the frame work is bad. Bad. Bad bad.
After scaling was complete, I came behind the Planner and cleaned the metal down to almost white clean with the sand blaster. From the picture above, you can see how pitted the corrugated panel is from the deep level of scale removed. Guess we should have descaled the Work Box last summer. Can't image what the Shop Box frame work looks like as they have been up over two years already. Ugh.
Upon cleaning, the Planner attempted to patch weld the tiny hole in the frame work. Big mistake. Big. What was once a small hole the size of an eraser is now a hole the size of a nickel. Spot welding is not gonna work. Gonna have to modify a piece of sheet steel to fit within the space and weld around its perimeter.
After many cardboard template cutouts, the perfect patch piece was aligned, welded, and red primer painted. Be as it is with all Plan473 projects, time was not on our side and the project was abandoned for another day.
Of course, we had time to stop and play with the neighbors' cat, Loca (Spanish for crazy) ...
and her two kittens Beans and Frank. Loca was already named but is the most appropriate name for a cat if ever there was. Beans and Frank are the Kids creation. Originally he had something boring like Bob and Frank but after explaining about Beans and Weenies i.e. Beans and Franks, he decided Beans and Frank were better. Unlike their mother, Beans and Frank were timid and very cautious. Loca, not so much so. She gave into the wind and its notion. Which is probably how Beans and Frank came to be. Oh, how Plan473 would love to have kitties. Kitties to go with the goat. But alas, we are on a NO MORE pet policy. Chickens excluded from this rules as they are not pets.
All in all, morning slack time and late evening slack time aside, it was a very productive day at Plan473.