Fairing The Aft Deck and Cockpit Sole + Spot Filling

September 17, 2016

With a lazy rousing to the day, I eventually made my way from the left side of the bed to the right...kidding, but I did have a leisurely morning and these are needed every so often!   

I started by water-washing the previous day's fairing application in order to remove the amine blush.  I began with the rails (toe and rub), and then worked my way to the aft deck and finally into the cockpit to clean the new coring installation in the sole.

I set up the vac. system on the RO sander and applied 80-grit pads to the surfaces as I worked my way around Joule.

I spent most of my time on the cockpit sole and aft deck; the rails went fairly quickly.

 With today's sanding behind me, I proceeded to clean Joule's deck first by vacuuming as much of the sanding residue as I could.  Next, I solvent-washed the decks to remove any remain sanding residue.

As mentioned in the previous post that described the cockpit sole coring work, I checked the fairness of the one layer of 1708 biaxial cloth to the surrounding area.  As I had initially thought, adding another layer of 1708 would cause the new layup to stand proud of the cockpit sole surfaces surrounding it.  Having determined that one layer of 1708 biaxial would suffice, I moved onto solvent-washing the deck and cockpit in order to prepare for filling with thickened epoxy.  I wet out the surfaces that required filling, and then began to mix small batches of thickened epoxy (406 silica and 407 low-density).  I started with the cockpit sole.

With the cockpit sole getting its first round of fairing compound, I then turned to the cockpit seats.  There were a number of areas of cracking and flaking gelcoat that I bore out with the spiral saw.  These areas were also 'painted' with t neat epoxy and then filled with the fairing compound.  The area requiring the most attention was the aft port-side seat, where the seat transitions to the coaming.

I also re-worked both starboard and port rails.  Shown below, I paid close attention to reforming the starboard deck, around the chain plate.  The deck 'fell-off' outboard in this area, so with a healthy mixture of 406 I was able to bring it back to level with the fore and aft deck surfaces.

There was some additional areas near the starboard that I addressed as well.  The next round of sanding (fairing) should brings the original lines back to these surfaces.

Finally, I addressed the aft deck - poop deck.  I applied the second round of fairing compound and could more easily see the convex surface that would be the eventual result.  It was a day of sanding, mixing epoxy, and applying that thickened epoxy.  More sanding work to come...

Total Time Today: 4.5 hrs