Grind, Grind, Grind:

7. New Bulkheads
8. The Cockpit Floor
 

What could be more fun than spending the sweltering Florida summer wearing a full body suit while you grind away mountains of fiberglass?

Yeah right! This is by far the worst part of boat restoration. Nothing can replace your grinder when it comes to removing all of the wood and glass to a nice working surface but Lord is it a miserable task.

The good thing is that it requires no skill other than being careful not to damage anything that you want to keep whole. You just plug in the grinder and cut/grind away.

I used a cheap 4.5" grinder from Harbor Freight that cost me $9.95 on sale along with a variety of grinding discs and sanding flap discs. That cheap POS grinder is still running perfect, go figure!

After what seemed like a million, suffocating hours I had the stringers/bulkheads removed and the hull of the Challenger completely clean. In the photo above you can see two of the new composite stringers laying in their future home ready to be epoxied in place.

New Stringers...

 

 

 

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