I got two words for ya: Hot and Humid. I got a chance to start working on the K-250 yesterday. I carefully removed all three view ports. Drained most of the water and did some clean-up. I scraped and poked all around the inside of the hull, and so far I have not found anything but surface rust. We'll know more when the sandblasting is done. I'll be sandblasting the three view port flanges this morning and see how much of the interior piping and hardware we can removed today, to get ready for sandblasting.
When I removed the large 2 inch thick acrylic view port, about 6 inches of water came gushing out. On that view port and the small port conning tower view port they used some crappy white silicone that didn't hold very well and looked bad to boot. The starboard conning tower view port was seated in clear silicone and had the metal seating surface painted. The port side seating surface was bare steel and lightly rusted. The taped screw holes on the conning tower view ports, didn't have any grease on the threads and so there was some light rust on the threads.
Here is the Frappr link to the pics I took yesterday.
The large front view port after I cleaned it up, looks really good with no crazing, yellowing, or scratches. It looks like we can just polish it and anneal it. That view port is in a mostly shaded protected position, so it didn't get much sun.
The conning tower view ports have some light crazing on just the interior surface. I'm not sure why but it would be interesting to know why? Perhaps the sunlight was focusing on the inside of these view ports from the dome and that combined with the heat did the damage. There are some very light scratches that should be able to be buffed out and no yellowing. Are the type of conning tower view ports we have on this K-250, with the beveled seating standard on K-250's and if so what is there crush depth? They are 1.20" thick by 6-9/16" on the exterior diameter and 5-3/8" for the interior diameter with a 1/8" flat round surface next the the exterior face. Is there a good solvent for cleaning silicone off of acrylic that won't damage the acrylic or do I just have to buff it off?
More data to come about the identity of this K-250. But for now I have sandblasting to get to.
Regards,
Brent Hartwig
"Everyone has a purpose in life. Perhaps yours is watching television."
- David Letterman