woo hoo! into the glass

We finally had a great day for epoxying, and the time to do so.  Boat is now half covered with glass.  Some tricks learned along the way from prior boats that may help someone else.

• purchase a Tyvek painting suit.  Worth its weight in gold
• use a chip brush, and squeegee to spread out and spread in the epoxy.  
• do not apply too thick a layer.  Apply with the brush, spread out with the squeegee.  3 thin coats should do it for 6 oz glass. 
• mix small batches of 5 pumps at a time.  You can do at least half the hull in a little over an hour.  
• I like the WEST as the 5:1 pumps make things very manageable.  

Tyvek suit ready for action. 

glass almost all laid out.  

Timer is set for 3 hours later to trim the excess and prep for the other side. Patched area at stern is nice and smooth fore aft and sideways.  

view from the side

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wired

Finally stitched the hull together.  All appears to be level and square, although I am going to double check the transom prior to tabbing all in place.  I was using copper wires, but ran out and got some crappy 18 ga at the local hardware store.  Not all copper is equal.  This stuff broke by looking at it.  Even doubled up, it would not twist without breakage.  Therefore, I switched back to 16 ga steel wire.  I will tab the panels in place, remove the wires, then finish the filling and glassing of the seams.  This worked pretty well on the last skiff I built.

I am happy that all the seams really look nice wired up.  the stem is still a little funky, so will wait until all is in place prior to filling and glassing.

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slowly bringing into shape

The shape is finally starting to come along.  The temporary center frame is in place (perhaps temporarily), and I have loosely wired in the stern frame.  The forward frame is under construction as well as the transom. I am hoping that this weekend I can get it all squared up and lock it all in place.

After a couple of hours, I was finally able to get these two forms to horn in accurately at each corner.  The problem was that the bottom panel was 1/4" too far aft.  I used a block of wood and a mallet to persuade it forwards, then reattached the forms til even.  Today, I will finish the forward frame and get the whole thing level prior to installing the transom.  Hope to be able to begin locking the boat together this week.

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