Fairing

 The boat is all glassed and fairing is in progress, this is the part that I said I would not bore you with hundreds of pictures, the goal is to put on the thinnest layer of fairing epoxy mix, and to get the boat fair, the mistake commonly made is to put on a thick layer of fairing mix and then to spend time sanding it off to create a very expensive dust.

if you would like to read more about epoxy, reinforcing with epoxy glass, and composite wooden boat construction have a look at the following link to the downloadable version of the west BIBLE on epoxy.

the gougeon brothers on boat construction

This has been my GO -TO reference on all things epoxy and boat repair ever since I built my Wharram Tiki 26, it answers every question you are likely to have about tool,s plywood, wood as a construction material, hull construction technoques, tanks, deck construction, fillets, fillers, prepping for paint and plywood  and composite construction. And more!

 Hull glassing

the hull has been glassed. The bow panels where there were relieving cuts to enable nice bends were filled with west filler and then they were glassed over with one layer of glass, another layer was then put on the panel , so there is a double layer over the relief cut area - 

I decided after much consideration to run my hull glass as a horizontal layup rather than using lots of vertical pieces with lots of overlaps. this worked really well with my 80cm wide glass cloth, as each panel is narrower than 80cm 

 Hull ready for Full Glass layer

The hull is prepped for the full layer of glass. The final layer of glass on each of the joins was laid down wider than the the last and feathered into the ply using a sander

My new sander -  the last Dewalt sander I have, had a problem with the platen bearing -  granted after 12 years of use and Dewalt say the part is obsolete  - I have however found a  replacement  - it uses a special dry unlubricated bearing, So I had to order 10 pcs, it will take a while to arrive  - so welcome to my new DW, still made in Mexico and the same price or a little cheaper than its older sibling, it does have a better dust bag and extraction - maybe just because it is younger

 Glassing and other bits and bobs from last week

glued in the infill for the Sapele mast support, the prepared Sapele mast support is really heavy as are the keel bearers/frames so they will be installed once the boat is turned so gravity can assist - the inside fillets were all done when the hull panels and bottom panels were glued on so that the hull frames, bulkheads and stringers are chemically bonded with the hullsides and hull bottom, a huge amount of wet on wet filletting was done at the hullside and bottom glueing stage to ensure super strength

all the edges were well radiased so the glass lies well over the edges

6 layers of glass 1200 gms on the bottom chine and 3 layers 600gm on the side chine

and peel ply to smooth it all and reduce sanding 

pulling off the peelply with the lights off creates "peelply borealis", 

Its a weird phenomenon, but I could not capture it on video

sorry for the lack of pictures but glassing is a sticky process