The Ballad Exchange

Question re: locker lids. Do you recall what they are made of, exactly? Could be one solid piece of cherry/mahog/teak with applied nosing and mitered-in breadboards... or could be rotary-cut Philippine mahogany (aka Merenti, aka Lauan) or Sapele plywood (probably 12mm?) with solid wood nosing. Which...

Repairs might have been 20yrs ago, tho -- when marine epoxies were rare in the field. And in truth, even secondary polyester-to-polyester bonds are about 70% as strong as epoxy-to-polyester. So you are in the neighborhood of 2000psi bond strength, which definitely falls into the 'good enuf for most ...

Best guess is "Hard grounding, followed by sole removal for inspection/survey/repairs." It's pretty common for the Ballad to buckle a little at the keel/hull join, aft end following a hard keel impact. Not generally enuf to compromise watertightness, but definitely some crumpling of the la...

Peter: Is that hatch you are admiring from Plexfix? http://www.plexifix.dk/ALBIN-BALLAD.htm We're planning to make our own, either from a splash mold of the existing hatch, or just reinforcing it & adding a acrylic light. We will be adding some kind of skid-resistant tape to the lens, tho! I can...

Mark: Another thing to consider is how much deck you really intend to paint, and what you will be doing for non-skid. As you can see from Joern's and Peter's gorgeous boats, most of your flat surface -- like 95% -- is covered with non-skid. Certainly the factory molded non-skid on our Ballad is dang...

You can start with white or an approximate off-white & use universal tints to match, mixing up sample batches on a color card. As Joerg notes, the color you see now is not the color from the factory -- looking under the winches will tell you that -- and the gelcoat patch will change with age as ...

Oh no. We're a long time from sailing anywhere. This summer was a complete write-down for boating matters. Sailed our little boat maybe twice in June; parked in backyard since. Sold our racing dinghy. Haven't spent more than three hours working on the Ballad. Exhaust components are rarely salvaged. ...

Welder did a nice job, staggering the welds to avoid distortion of the (relatively) thin steel. He cut it out of a 1'x2' plate. You could use 8" wide bar stock, but the distributor didn't have any in 316L. And plate is flatter, anyhow. By rough calcs, this truss is good for 60,000lbs compressiv...

Good info on the transverse beam, Mark (& Ken). What should we call it -- a clavicle? Ours has some surface rust but lots of sound metal remaining underneath: https://farm1.staticflickr.com/775/22483327321_13ab6edf71.jpg After touching up with a wire wheel: https://farm1.staticflickr.com/748/218...

So its out! Eh, I reckon I could have had another two or three seasons out of,... maybe... err :lol: http://s24.postimg.org/4os8lyu51/bob.jpg Holy cow, Mark! That's even scarier than our truss. Sorry if this job cost you a season's sailing, but you did the right thing. Nice looking repair, too. Sor...