July 2013

July  2013

 

Today, July 3rd I started the arduous process of removing all the foamed spongy gorilla glue that I had used to temporarily hold the strips together. I used a very sharp #2 gouge to slice off the foamed glue and it came off quite easily. Once all the foamed glue is removed it will be time to sand the inside of the hull to remove all traces of the glue and to assist in leveling the inside surface. All voids will be filled with thickened epoxy to both tighten the hull and form a uniform smooth surface.  Today, July 21, 2013 I sanded the interior to the hull with my 6 inch sander/grinder with a 50 grit disc. This is a dusty, hot, backbreaking job and one of the pitfalls of boat building. I hate sanding but it must be completed if I want a fair and uniform interior hull on the boat. And to make matters worse it was 92 degrees today but fortunately we didn’t have too much humidity. Once I finished this job it was time for a shower, an adult beverage and a nap.  After dinner I started to fill all the crevices, screw holes and uneven strips with my epoxy sanding dust mixture. On and off over the next 23 days I continued to sand and fill those spots that were uneven in the hull. Once all the crevices were filled I applied a sealer coat of epoxy to the entire hull. The sealer coat does several things; first it fills the grain on all the wood in the hull and second it acts as a sealer to prevent moisture entering the wood prior to the fiber glassing process.  Overall I used 112 oz. of resin and 56 oz. of hardener to complete the fairing/sealing process. After one month of sanding/epoxy filling I decided I needed a break so I started making the deck beams.