40 yr old Cape Dory gets a face lift

[redhead]

A truly beautiful job. Kudos.

We're about 2/3 of the way through our refit and I confess my first thought was
"is he single?"

then I thought
"damn, I'm not"

then I thought
"with work like that my husband won't care"

Like I said....a work of art!

[susanna reiter]

So very true oldragbaggers...absolutely, it is "the boat" where our heart is


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[susanna reiter]

Ditto

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[fishsail]

I appreciate the kind words of encouragement.
Coats 3,4 and 5 getting sprayed on hand rails, coaming board and port side toe and rub rails.

[fishsail]

I had the original old chrome plated winches I had to either re-chrome or strip and see what they looked like neked? After having them stripped and hit them with a little sand paper I am leaving them bronze. I like to old bronze look. here are before and after pics. They will require more upkeep but look nicer IMO.

[Saltyhog]

Nicely done Fishsail Can I ask what was your process for painting the aluminum port light frames? I have to do the same for the old Atkins-Hoyle lights in our Bayfield.

[fishsail]

Alum. is easy to work with. Mine were very pitted and nasty looking. I sanded them down until almost all the pits were gone. Than I primed them with zinc chromate (green), then a high build primer (white) to fill any pits that were still there, sanded the primer than painted with alwgrip silver metallic. I wanted it as close to original as I could find and they turned out nice. For the small oval ones I made the frames out of 1/8" alum. routered the edges and cut a 1/4" piece of acrylic the size of the frame and painted the frames and the edges of the acrylic so they look like a complete frame.

[fishsail]

Well the interior is about 90% finished. We found these brass and copper lights in WPB they fit right in. And a little more work on the winches turned them from old to new.

[Cadence]

Looks great. I'm with you on the bronze as far a looks but chrome does not turn green so buy stock in Brasso.

[robert sailor]

Very pretty, hats off to you as you have a one of a kind. Your boat will gather a lot of attention as you sail from place to place, enjoy the attention as you deserve it.

[Xthewater]

Originally Posted by oldragbaggers

It is a WONDERFUL madness. You are doing a fantastic job, very lovely. Let's all keep these fine old Cape Dorys out on the water for many years to come. I think somewhere "up there" Carl Alberg is smiling.

Thanks Becky. We're on the verge of finally being able to use Renata! This weekend planning on finishing the water heater connections after a couple weeks effort rebuilding Raritan 6gal. water heater, posting soon on blog. $1250+ for new was too much for us.
Love your polished bronze winches, we did the same with ours.

[Haylands]

You have done a cracking job there, looks lovely, like the lights, spot on!!...

Winches look great too....

[gates_cliff]

Wow, the companionway hatch "Turtle" is beautiful. I've actually dreamed about something like that for my CD 27 but wondered how to build it. Do you have plans or just built out of your head?

[fishsail]

Thanks Cliff, No plans. I was missing everything except the sliding hatch so we built around that. very time consuming and expensive as I made a few bad cuts, uggg
mahogany is expensive.

[Don C L]

Any new photos? (Not that I need to be any more jealous than I am already! Just love to see a beautiful boat come back to life!)