Long day in the boat shed

Seven hours of sanding. That's what I'd call 'sandinsanity'. Unfortunately it has to be done.

I got to workin' out how much epoxy I will need to finish the inside of the hull and I don't have enough. I still have to put one layer of 12 oz on the keel, one layer of 12 oz on the port side bottom, one layer of 12 oz on the port side. If my calcs are right I'll need about 10 gallons of epoxy. I have 11 on hand. Not much room for error. So I decided to skip the finishing layer of 10 oz cloth for now. That can be put down later after the stringers are in.

So getting a good start this morning I sanded the port side from bulwarks to keel bottom and from stem to stern. I used almost every sander in the arsenal including both 8" High Speed Spinning Wheels of Disaster & Dismemberment! ;-) 

Port aft quarter getting sanded

One of the 8" sanders was used to cover the large areas quickly. This is actually my car polisher that's been forced into double duty as a sander. It has variable speed which is essential. About 1500 RPM works well. Faster than that and it just seems to burn the epoxy. It works quick but takes a lot of upper body strength and grip to control it. I don't have much of either.

Car polisher as a sander

It quickly knocks down the highs but skips over any low spots. I have to go back over the whole thing with the 6" RO but that goes rather quickly.

6" RO gets the joins better than the 8"

Once I had the sides and bottom done I had to dive into the box keel again. Oh boy, my second favorite spot to work! Doh!

Deep in the box keel (looking aft)

The box keel still needs one layer of 12 oz on the port side and bottom. This will likely get done tomorrow. Just a bit more sanding and then clean up and I'll lay out the fiberglass.

I've over drafted my overdraft and totally blew my boat building funds for this month. Think that was the 10 oz fiberglass I bought that pushed me over the edge. I have to behave for at least three more weeks until the Gubment refreshes the boat building kitty. *sigh*

I had 23 gallons of epoxy at the beginning of this season. I was hoping that would be enough but up till a couple of weeks ago I knew it wasn't and bought another 9-1/2 gallons ($500 USD or $650 Cdn + 13% tax). It looks like I'll use every drop just to finish the two layers of glass and get the stringers glued in. This whale is soaking up the stuff like crazy. I know a lot of it is my own fault for not working as neatly as I could but sheez! The designer specified 36 gallons to build the whole boat. So far I've used about 95 gallons. Probably 25% of that I've sanded off, hiding my mistakes, in one way or the other. *Sigh*

Standby.....