Thursday, April 16, 2015

Glassing and Filling

Well I got some tips from the Wharram builders' site on filling the weave. These tips, coupled with new short nap rollers from Raka, have me seeing a much easier time of getting it filled. I did two fill coats on the cabin tops and foredecks today, and I also glassed the aft deck of the port hull. Around the time I finished up, yet another thunderstorm starting looming near with black clouds from the West and increasing wind. It was raining by the time I got home, so it was a good call to quit for the day. The constant rain has been a real progress killer this Spring! The plan for tomorrow is to try and glass the starboard hull aft deck, do another fill coat or two, and do the last set of fillets on the mast beam. That will leave just the cabin sides needing glass before everything (topsides wise) is covered. We are sailing in the Dauphin Island Regatta next week, so the end goal for Wednesday is to have the decks all glassed and filled and ready to flip the hulls.


Thickened with phenolic balloons and some silica, I rolled on two fill coats on foredecks and cabin tops.


Those aren't air bubbles on the toerails. I did two sets of fillets, and the first one was mostly silica, accouting for the white seen in this picture.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Progress

Well I have finally completed the fillets on all three of the crossbeams! It feels pretty good to be done with those guys. Today I glassed the two cabin tops from the front deck all the way up and over and down to the rear deck. I just need to glass the aft decks and cabin top sides at this point, and the tops of the hulls will be completely covered up! Tomorrow I plan to fill in the weave on what I did today, and start final sanding of beams and tillers and rudders. I also bought a little Sunfish to keep me motivated during the final stages, and it's been a real blast so far for booze cruising around on.