Friday, March 14, 2008

Together at last!



Now, finally?....The deck and hull mate together for the last time! Wire it up!

The part I cannot show you......the deck to hull interior joint. First weld. Then fillet, tape and wet it out. The most difficult part of the job, simply because you are working in tight quarters in the fore and aft compartments, neatness is difficult but fortunately these are areas unseen. I used a lot of epoxy in there. My area of excess. Also, because of the fact that I couldn't get near the ends of the boat, even using a stick, with any kind of accuracy, I tipped the boat upside down and tilted on an angle for a partial end pour to make sure the hull would not separate on me before externally glassing. First the bow, then the next day the stern. Yeah I used a lot of epoxy during this part of the operation.

The cockpit hull to deck joint was cake. Huge area to work in, make it pretty.
Then time to use some sand paper. Careful not to overdo it. When it comes to your sanding equipment, you simply cannot beat a random orbital sander and a wet/dry vacuum plugged into the outlet for minimizing dust. You still need to wear a monogoggle and mask because it is so close to your face but you won't trash your work area every time you power up the sander when you have the vacuum. Down the road when sanding the epoxy, best to do it outside.

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