Last June, a volunteer working to restore the 30,000 square feet of wood deck space on the battleship USS Texas brought Trinity Hardwood Distributors' Bill Matney a beat-up big machine to repair. "The motor was shot, and the drum was destroyed," says Trinity's Houston branch manager, who still remembers collecting coins as a young boy to help pay for transport of the decommissioned ship from Baltimore to San Jacinto, Texas. "The machine was a goner." He couldn't imagine the repair and recoating project being completed in time for the ship's 100-year-anniversary celebration on March 15 using that piece of equipment. So he contacted Clarke American Sanders and Norton Abrasives, which donated a FloorCrafter belt sander and Red Heat abrasives. Matney then taught the volunteers how to use and maintain the sander safely, and helped them find products and techniques to make the job go smoother and faster. The deck contains 4-inch-by-4-inch-by-8-foot yellow pine planks (the original deck was spruce) and is undergoing the following process: When a plank is replaced, the rust is chiseled from the steel deck and coated with a rust-inhibiting paint. To seal seams between the planks, a custom rubber caulk is used. (Fun fact: The original caulk was hemp.) Before sanding, all open grain, knots and pegs are filled with epoxy, and then the deck is sanded with 36-grit paper and finished with 60-grit before it's coated with a sealer and two coats of custom gray paint. Matney predicted in mid-January that the resurfacing project run would likely past March 15, but a back-up plan calls for a temporary patch-and-paint effort to impress visitors during the anniversary festivities. Then it'll be back to replacing planks and refinishing the deck properly before the Texas is permanently dry-docked. "It's done tremendous service to this nation," Matney says.
