Prepping the cockpit locker, finding scrap wood and building the cover frame

I began this weekend preparing the cockpit lockers for new gray Total Boat bilge paint. It was too cold out to paint, but it is never too cold to sand. I put some 50 grit sand paper onto the sander and taped the shopvac on as a dust collection system. This seems to work pretty well, as there was not much dust. I got most of the sanding done, about 2/3, and all that is left before painting is to hit a few more spots with the sander and tape off the area for paint. I am very excited to see how great this new paint will look. As you can see in the photos below, the paint in the locker is very old and flaky, not very pleasing to look at and it gets all over everything that is placed in the lockers. The new Total Boat bilge paint will be a great solution to this problem.  

The next day I did not have so much time so I began building the frame for the tarp. The frame is built out of three 1/2" PVC ribs that are spliced together with connectors. The ribs where screwed straight into the life-line bases. Running in-between the ribs are two 1/2" diameter sections of PVC. Once the tarp is on the boat there will be two 4' LED light bars attached to the lateral pieces to supply light. 

Finally, I found an old sail boat that was being thrown away. The boat was mahogany on oak. I went and took some of the mahogany off of it for projects. It was in rough shape, but with a little work with the table saw I was able to make nice small planks that will be used in future projects, such as a stair into the cabin.