Southern Maryland TD Build Log

Did a good work session this afternoon.  Glassed the left side , I’m very happy with it, though I did have to call a DO-OVER on the initial glass cloth drape.  I trimmed it too much!  I saved the (large) chunk of glass cloth of course, I’ll probably use it on the bottom where appearance won’t matter much.  I’ll be much more careful on the right side cloth, and I learned a lot doing the left side so I expect it’ll go better anyway.

I did a “pre-pump” of three Solo Cups with 30 pumps of resin and set them aside.  Draped the cloth then added the hardner to each batch as I needed more epoxy.  Ther hardner is considerably lower viscosity and is easier and quicker to pump, and is half the volume as well.  This speeded up the time required to mix up a fresh batch of goop when I needed it, a good thing because it’s a pretty large area of glass to wet out.

Going to do the right side tomorrow, I’ll post pics then.

Post-epoxy sanding DONE! Total was right at 9 hours of sander love.  No glass sand-through anywhere, though I did get into the cloth a small amount in a few places.  Sanded until I saw 95%(+) of what I call the “sparkles” go away.  These are tiny shiny areas in the valleys of the epoxy from various causes, including roller texture, glass cloth wrinkles, glass roll creases, and yes, previous over-sanding.  Over sanding is increadably easy to do!

Did the vast majority with 120 grit, but used a single 80 grit sanding pad to fast cut the 2″ overlap on the top.  Hand sanded the vertexes between the facets using a sanding sponge, that worked well there.

Today i I will apply the final finish overcoat of epoxy.  Per the Hymnal, I’m going to roll it on and then tip it with a foam brush.  Working on the milky sanded surface should make this epoxy coat easy to apply!  I will apply the epoxy at 60F for added pot life working time and then when finished crank it up to 80F with the propane burner.  I quit using the kerosene heater as soon as I flipped the shell right side up.  While it did not put out a LOT of soot there was a little, however early on the massive heat output was useful when the outside temps were in the 20’s as I was able to actively work in the shop (and I had not purchased the propane burner yet either, the old “use what you’ve got” principal). Anyway, no fisheyes, which is what I was worried about.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by SOMDTD.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by SOMDTD.

I applied a US flag to the transom last night, mostly as a test as if it turned out ugly I can either just use it on the inside or make a new transom pretty easily from a new piece of plywood, no biggie.  Turned out “just ok”, learned a couple of lessons though that I thought I’d share.

I used a 12 x 18 “stick flag”.  It was a printed flag, not one with embroidered stars.  I think you could use an embroidered star flag but it won’t lay flat very nicely and you’ll get air bubbles.  The flag had starch or some sort of sizing on it, as it was a bit stiff in texture.  It came stapled onto a stick, I used needle nose pliers to pull the staples.

The basic process was to lay down a thin coat of epoxy, lay the cloth down and position it, then roll a medium coat of epoxy over the top.  This all went reasonably well, except the area where the flag has been stapled to the stick.  With the stiffness from the starch // sizing there was a little curl to the fabric that would not really quite lay flat in the area.  Next time I think I will a) first rinse out the flag in hot water to wash out some of the sizing and let it dry and b) iron the thing totally flat, before trying to laminate it on.

The flag was made out of some sort of not too tightly woven cotton or polyester and it retained it’s colors pretty well, perhaps made them a bit darker when saturated with epoxy.  I am wondering how a nylon flag would do, in particular will white areas turn transparent or bleed through underlying grain etc. similar to fiberglass cloth?

Built the vent hatch this morning, fillet and glassed.  Easy glass layup!  Finished the galley hatch gutter, that was a PITA.  Came out just ok.  Going to hit it with the sander this afternoon and clean it up and fair it in better.

Hatch is installed and glassed.  Did a bunch of sanding on the galley gutter.  Fitted the transom, but ran out of time to fillet & glass it in.  There is no way CA is going to hold it — have some small gaps — so I’m going to have to entomb some stitches in the transom install.  Coming along!  I’ll sand and fair in the vent hatch glass tomorrow as well and fill the weave in.  Then more sanding….