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The next job was to re-grout the shower. The environmentally friendly cleaning products may have been good for the canal but the vinegar had made holes in the grout between the tiles. Lorna used the new Fein tool with diamond edged blade to take out all the old grout and then she could seal the shower again with new.
There was still an old section of panelling against the port side of the hull so, in preparation for taking down the big old full width bulkhead, I cut up the panelling and stripped it back to bare hull. Rust fell off in bucket loads together with the old red lead paint that could no longer cling to it. I set to with a big flat chisel and wire brushes to prepare for treating with Vactan rust cure:
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I seem happy emough getting covered in rust dust and old paint but it is because I have been wanting to get on with this bit for ages. The certification to TRIWV has got in the way of progress towards a finished boat. The milky white stuff is the Vactan which is a rust treatment that turns black as it reacts with the rust to turn it into an inert substance.
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As the Vactan works it turns the rust black and creates a nice surface to take more paint. The right hand picture is of the zinc based primer that we use over the Vactan. I did use a roller for the flat areas but the rivets and plate edges make this work slow.
The side of the boat looks much better with 1 coat of Vactan and 2 coats of zinc primer. I then put on 2 coats of Dulux red Metalshield gloss to finish it off. We will get a 2 pack kit of spray foam to insulate this section before winter.