October 28, 2017
I started early this morning with a quick water-wash of the previous fairing application and then proceeded to sand the cockpit locker lids. I used the RO sander to hit the larger surfaces, and then transitioned to hand-sanding for the tight inner radius of the inside corners and for careful shaping of the outside corners. With that taken care of, I vacuumed the surfaces and wiped down the surface with solvent to remove the remaining dust and prep for a coat of 'neat' epoxy. But for now I had an appointment to get to which, so I closed the shop for the morning.
With my appointment taken care of, I returned to the shop and got straight to work on sanding Joule's topsides and deck. The fairing work on Joule's topsides, deck, and cockpit are drawing to a close. My hope is to get a protect primer coat on at least her topsides by this weekend...but alas, we shall see. I did not snap and photos of the post-sanding session, but recall the smoothness of a newborn's honey :) I did in find a few areas that required spot fill work, so while I prepared the cabin sole for coring I prepped those areas for fill by wetting them out with straight ('neat') epoxy. With those spot fill areas prepped, I then wet out the bottom skin of the cabin sole. Prior to wetting the cabin sole bottom skin out I did do some sanding and removal of more rotten core. The line you see emerging from the bilge is holding a brace the length of the cabin sole in order to help it retain its shape during the recore work.
With the bottom skin ready to receive new core, I moved back to the shop to mix thickened epoxy to bed the new core material. I started by pushing thickened epoxy into the edges, and pushing narrow width strips into and underneath the edges (areas that I have ground a taper for tabbing the new topskin to). I then filled in the inner field with the larger core pieces.
Before closing the boat up for the night, I laid a sheet of plastic over the new core and applied some weight to keep the core and bottom skin the 'best of friends'!
Returning to the shop, I mixed a pot of neat epoxy and with a foam brush applied a sealer coat on the cockpit seat locker lids. I will be reinforcing the locker lids tomorrow by glassing in a small stringer on the underside of the lids.
Before closing the shop for the evening, I put a coat of thickened epoxy on the top of the companionway slide hatch. Fabricating the brightwork is just around the corner!
Total Time Today 6.75 hrs