Little bites here and there

Took a day off to rest up my hands and get away from the cats & boat for awhile. The Admiral and I took our final car club cruise last night which was fun!

Taking a day off to rest the hands seems to be the ticket to getting stuff done. Gives me time to plan out a little better what it is I have to do next. This morning's venture into the boat shed started with some sanding.

Sanding the box keel

Trying to get through this most unpleasant of jobs as quickly as possible I pulled out the 8" High Speed Spinning Wheel of Pain and Suffering. Whipped down the keel in about 20 mins. It's messy though, tossing fiberglass and dust everywhere. My lil' fan buddy can't help when I'm using this tool!

Back end of keel and transom glass laid out

Once the sanding was done the whole boat was vacuumed & air broomed out prior to the areas being glass getting wiped down with solvent. I then laid out the glass. Had just enough 12 oz fabric (barely) to do the transom.

Bow section getting glass laid out

Next up was the bow section forward of the thruster tube. I didn't have any 12 oz left so I took a tour of the garden shed to see what I did have. There's still a ton of 33 oz triax left so I whacked off 8' of that. I split a 4' x 4' section into two triangles and that gives me the basic shape.

Both sides of bow glass laid up

This 33 oz fiberglass is heavy! That little section there will absorb over a half gallon of epoxy! It's massive overkill, almost 3 times what the designer specified. I don't think it's a waste of material though. If we ever hit anything head on this section is right at the waterline. With the carbon fiber on the outside and this extra fiberglass inside we should be safe. We almost hit a picnic table a few years ago in our old boat. I'm sure if we did hit it we'd have had major problems!

Gooped!

As well as being heavy the 33 oz fiberglass is ultra tough to wet out. You have to start wetting it out on the back side then give it time to soak through a bit then hang the glass up on the section to be fiberglassed. Even then there's about a half hour of continuous rolling & bubble squeegeeing to get it thoroughly soaked and stuck down.

Called it quits after that. I'll goop the other two sections tomorrow.

Our crusty ole' rusty IROC at the Friday Night Cruise In.

Standby...