I hadn’t secured a specific place to land for the month of August but my good friend Shawna Feiling was planning to visit her friends on the East coast and offered her place in Ballard to me while she was gone. I could keep the mail picked up and the plants watered so it worked out great for both of us. The first few days of the month was spent “couch surfing” between my daughter’s house in the island and Michael and Sam’s place in Ballard. Michael also had a few minor projects he needed done to their rental property on Capitol Hill, a section of Seattle. I cleaned out a partially clogged drain on a dishwasher, installed a security peep hole in and repainted the entrance door, caulked some door molding gaps, etc.
The biggest task was to replace the bathtub surround in the downstairs apartment. That project turned out to be kind of a pain in the backside. The first step was to remove the old surround which was fairly poor condition and not the color that Michael and Sam wanted. These types of surrounds are basically flat sheets of plastic or water proof fiberboard and are held in place with mastic adhesive. It came out in pieces which was to be expected. Then I had to remove the old mastic to prepare the wall surface to accept the new surround. A trip to Home Depot produced a new surround that came in five individual panels. It was designed to fit an opening that had 90 degree corners. Unfortunately, neither of the corners of the walls were perfect 90 degrees so it took some custom trimming and even so it was difficult to get it secured. Once that was completed I still had to seal all of the seam with silicone sealant. This should have been fairly straight forward but took over two days to complete. 5 pieces had a lot of seams and of course there was the seam where it met the tub and the top edge where it met the wall. All of these junctures had to be water proof as well. Hopefully, they turned out that way. But I didn’t have time to thoroughly check it out as I was scheduled to leave to come back south the day after I finished the project.
I was anxious to get back to Bocas del Toro. Kim and Bryan had sent me a couple of pictures of the new railings after they had been painted and they looked fantastic. But I could tell from the photos that the method of filling the spaces between the rays in the half-moon pieces was not holding up. Moisture had begun to swell the foam and was cracking and lifting the paint in those areas. I had done some research and thought I had found the solution. I purchase a quart of Bondo brand two part epoxy wood filler. It was advertised that it had zero shrinkage, was ready to sand in two hours of cure time, accepted paint or stain just as if it were real wood. So with the wood filler packed away in my luggage along with my newly purchased belt sander. At the time I was first building the railings I was really wishing someone made a belt that was only a half inch or so wide. That would allow one to get into places that the normal 3” wide sanders just simply would not fit. Low and behold, I found that more than one manufacturer made just such an article and I had to have it.
The biggest task was to replace the bathtub surround in the downstairs apartment. That project turned out to be kind of a pain in the backside. The first step was to remove the old surround which was fairly poor condition and not the color that Michael and Sam wanted. These types of surrounds are basically flat sheets of plastic or water proof fiberboard and are held in place with mastic adhesive. It came out in pieces which was to be expected. Then I had to remove the old mastic to prepare the wall surface to accept the new surround. A trip to Home Depot produced a new surround that came in five individual panels. It was designed to fit an opening that had 90 degree corners. Unfortunately, neither of the corners of the walls were perfect 90 degrees so it took some custom trimming and even so it was difficult to get it secured. Once that was completed I still had to seal all of the seam with silicone sealant. This should have been fairly straight forward but took over two days to complete. 5 pieces had a lot of seams and of course there was the seam where it met the tub and the top edge where it met the wall. All of these junctures had to be water proof as well. Hopefully, they turned out that way. But I didn’t have time to thoroughly check it out as I was scheduled to leave to come back south the day after I finished the project.
I was anxious to get back to Bocas del Toro. Kim and Bryan had sent me a couple of pictures of the new railings after they had been painted and they looked fantastic. But I could tell from the photos that the method of filling the spaces between the rays in the half-moon pieces was not holding up. Moisture had begun to swell the foam and was cracking and lifting the paint in those areas. I had done some research and thought I had found the solution. I purchase a quart of Bondo brand two part epoxy wood filler. It was advertised that it had zero shrinkage, was ready to sand in two hours of cure time, accepted paint or stain just as if it were real wood. So with the wood filler packed away in my luggage along with my newly purchased belt sander. At the time I was first building the railings I was really wishing someone made a belt that was only a half inch or so wide. That would allow one to get into places that the normal 3” wide sanders just simply would not fit. Low and behold, I found that more than one manufacturer made just such an article and I had to have it.
Half Inch Belt Sander With 5" Reach
I was also going to make a stop in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to visit my friend of 40+ years, Ron Anderson and soon to be, new wife, Wendy. I enjoyed several days with them before continuing on the Panama and Bocas del Toro.
See you all when the plane lands
See you all when the plane lands