Grinding progress

[Figment]

Tim,

This may or may not apply to the difficulty you're experiencing with your interior cleanup grinding, but when I was grinding away the remnants of my forward bulkhead, I found that it was the combination of plywood and 'glass that slowed the process.

During a dustfree breathing break, a thought struck and I spent some time with hammer, chisel, and big honkin flathead screwdriver to remove as much of the plywood as possible... fracturing the bond with careful impact, then levering the wood out of the void.

The grinder then was able to make much shorter work of the leftover tabbing, as long as I was mindful to keep the machine moving to avoid heat buildup.

[Dave, 397]

I vote for the muffler cutoff tool, myself. While I am generally not fond of tools with guards and would in most places just pitch a disc on a mandrel and chuck it up in the die grinder proper, there are enough places in the boat where a guy could too easily bind and "BLAM!" a cutoff disc. Muffler cutoff tool with guard for me.

I, too, had a compressor issue, and just today solved it. I'll write about it a bit in a day or so when my blood pressure is close to normal!

Dave

[Tim]

Dave and Mike,

Good thoughts. I appreciate it. I'll give that a go.

[JetStream]

Tim,

I have found that my Milwaukee 4-1/2" Angle Grinder outperforms my 7" by a lot. The 4-1/2" has a lot more RPM's and with 36 grit disks, it cuts stuff like soft butter. I use my Supplied Air Respirator because the grinding causes whiteout conditions that would clog any other respirator.

[Tim]

Mike, Dave, and Bruce:

See this week's upcoming log (Sunday, August 24, 2003) for an update on the grinding progress. I've found a solution that works, and it's more or less a combination of all three suggestions. Metal-cutting discs in my 4-1/2" grinder worked well to cut through the tabbing (though they wear out quickly--at least they're cheap, but after using up three of them in short order during an afternoon's work removing the aftermost bulkhead remains, McMaster-Carr was nice enough to deliver 20 more of them to get me through the remaining structure), use of a hammer and chisel as needed thereafter to loosen and remove the remaining wood (and tabbing, where possible), and then a combination of 16 grit on the big grinder for bulk FRP removal followed by a final smoothing with 40 grit on the 8" Stikit pad.

The Triton Daysailor | Progress Logs

I'm hoping to get the worst of the grinding completed before the boat moves inside to my new barn in 6 or 8 weeks. With the hull wide open and a breeze blowing, I find that the dust conditions aren't too bad, relatively speaking. Copius amounts of dust are created, of course, but the wind is nice enough to carry much of it away and keep the air relatively clear.

As always, I appreciate all the input!