The not so fun part?

Epoxy is tough stuff! Around 25 hours work wearing a mask and using 100 sanding disc's, beginning with 80 grit over the entire boat, then 120 grit and finally 220 grit, then a good cleanup will lead to a smooth hull and a clean workshop, leaving only all the hand sanding remaining. A good place to finally be.

Drill, fill, drill....

Here is another step not mentioned in the manuals that is important.....

Drill every hole needed for rigging, temporary rig, then take it all off, drill every hole 2 sizes larger, then fill with thickened epoxy (wood flour), then later on (much later on) drill out and install rigging to the original size. Why????? Because this way our final holes are drilled through epoxy (not wood), leaving our hull's integrity for keeping out water 100% guaranteed. The shortcut would be to drill and intall rigging with RTV, which eventually will leak somehow and the hull would then wick in water and create an unsightly stain that is not reversable. After all the work of building, one more step to ensure a proper job is no big deal. In the second pic, you can see 3 holes that were filled in darker with wood flour. These will become invisible under the rigging later on. Much later on.

Moving along...

The last piece of glass, around the cockpit rim. Yep, after all that sanding, we get to build up more glass and epoxy so we can sand it again. The cockpit rim needs to be strong.

Also pictured is a side project, shaping the mohogany compass riser that will be installed later on.

Take the easy way out.

After a day or so, when all those clamps come out of the cockpit, what is left, no matter how clean you tried to work, is a bunch of jagged edged, rock hard, cured silica/epoxy. The instruction manual will have you sanding, scraping this rock hard material to an eventually smooth finish. After five minutes of the scraping and not getting very far, I decided to look to the help of power tools.

I plugged in my new jigsaw with a new hi-tech type blade that won't easily bend or splinter the edges of the finished woodwork and cut a very thin line all the way around the inside of the cockpit, which left me with new, clean wood, a good place to be. Then some finish sanding and rounding over the cockpit rim. Remember to sand underneath the cockpit edge where there surely will be some rough edges from dripping epoxy/silica.

Got clamps?

You are gonna need them. If you think you have enough, you probably need some more.

First picture is a quick shot of the recessed 'invisible' rear hatch. The kit comes with toggles to hold the hatches down but I opted to use blocks, hooks and bungie underneath, so no hardware is visible outside. I will post a pic of the set up for this when it is finished.

In the second picture, all those clamps are needed to bend the wood and keep pressure on the contact points between the deck, the two spacers and the cockpit rim. Actually, I could have used a few more clamps myself. The epoxy this time was thickened to a mustard consistency with silica as the thickening media. You do not want it runny at all and we always use silica instead of wood flour when clamping wood together in this fashion. Strong springloaded clamps are best in this application. You can use c-clamps as you see in the photo, just be careful not to overtighten them, which would result in starving the joints of epoxy by forcing it all out.

Cover it up, cap it off.

By now, being old pro's at this, time to lay out the last large piece of glass, trim it up allowing a two inch overlap below the deck to hull joint, wet it out and glass the top of the two hatches.

Here the wood takes on its color, a great contrast between the Okoume and Sapele. Early in the build I was wondering how I would fit the razor type points of the sheer panels seamlessly between deck and hull but it did work out well.

Stay tuned, I will update the blog as I make more progress!

Topside preparation work.

After finishing filling the weave of the hull, time to flip the boat over and prepare the deck for glass and reinforcing that hull to deck joint.

First thing is to clean up that deck/hull joint of bumps and drips and round that corner off smooth. A sureform scraper, about 5 dollars, will pay for itself in about 15 seconds on cleaning up that joint. Once the joint is all cleaned up, this is your last chance to go over the deck with 220 sandpaper before the deck gets sealed up.