Refinish Your Swing Keel for Best Performance – Part 4: Sealing and Painting

This post is the continuation of Refinish your swing keel for best performance – Part 3: Fairing. I will describe: building a fiberglass reinforced guard on the leading edge, applying the final waterproofing coats of epoxy, bonding centering spacers on the upper end, priming with a barrier coat of epoxy paint, and applying ablative bottom paint last.

Refinish Your Swing Keel for Best Performance – Part 3: Fairing

This post is the continuation of Refinish Your Swing Keel for Best Performance – Part 2: Cleaning. I will describe common keel defects, the fairing system I used, sealing a freshly sandblasted keel, applying body filler to build up an accurate hydrodynamic foil shape, and paying extra attention to the shape of the leading edge…

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Refinish Your Swing Keel for Best Performance – Part 2: Cleaning

This post is the continuation of Refinish Your Swing Keel for Best Performance – Part 1: Removing. This week, I describe using hand tools and power tools to remove most of the old coatings and rust, one way to lift and move the keel so you can work on it elsewhere, and the different methods of removing…

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Refinish Your Swing Keel for Best Performance – Part 1: Removing

Does your swing keel look like it has leprosy? Does it make a disturbing klunking sound when you switch tacks? If it has exposed rust, do you know for a fact how extensive it is? Would you be surprised to learn that the swing keels of many older C-22s are not properly shaped to minimize drag and have…

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Faith And Fair Winds

Looking out my office window at gray skies and still waters days before Christmas Day, I’m in a melancholy mood. Those of you who have followed this blog for at least one year know that I only mention my Christian faith at this time. The rest of the year is business as usual. I’ve been…

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