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Boat! (with extras)
May. 23rd, 2011 07:43 pmHurray, I did the big piece of fiberglass on the inside of the boat today! So far it looks fine--I even rolled it out into the dregs of the sunlight just now and I don't see any bubbles (that lifted the fiberglass off the wood--there are a few "bubble-gum" type bubbles in the epoxy but these are as thin as soap bubbles and only slightly more difficult to pop, and a tiny bit of sanding will take care of them so I don't care) or any of the latitudinal ripples that marred my last inside fiberglassing job.
I think the key is that
1) I took all the time I needed to smooth the fiberglass into the keel and all the curves using a dry brush
2) I clipped the top edge of the fiberglass to the top edge of the boat with clothespins to hold it all in place until the epoxy could handle the job
3) I first epoxied along the keel line, from the center to the bow and then from the center to the stern, before I tried to epoxy up the sides. Plus I epoxied up the sides in (roughly) thirds, so the bottom of the boat, then the sides of the boat, and only then the top edge of the boat, and
4) I stripped out the extra epoxy mostly by squeegeeing parallel to the keel (normally one does it by squeegeeing from the keel line to the sheer (where the gunwale will go)--but in the case of these shallow-vee hulls this is a bad idea because it pulls the epoxy-sticky fiberglass out of the keel line with every stroke, and it has to be massaged back into place, which creates lots of little bubbles.
So I'm cautiously pleased about that. Of course, last time I thought everything was fine and discovered the huge bubbles the next morning. So we'll see.
Also I have done some practice (instrumental stuff in the morning while listening to NPR) and moved the daylilies Beth gave me into a heeling in bed, and done a load of laundry and exchanged the music stand that was slantways for one that is straighter, and bought new strings for the octave mandolin and bought sandwich fixings for tomorrow's League meeting and also food for myself because I was out of a bunch of stuff. I still need to do some more practice though.
I hope you folks had a productive day too.
I think the key is that
1) I took all the time I needed to smooth the fiberglass into the keel and all the curves using a dry brush
2) I clipped the top edge of the fiberglass to the top edge of the boat with clothespins to hold it all in place until the epoxy could handle the job
3) I first epoxied along the keel line, from the center to the bow and then from the center to the stern, before I tried to epoxy up the sides. Plus I epoxied up the sides in (roughly) thirds, so the bottom of the boat, then the sides of the boat, and only then the top edge of the boat, and
4) I stripped out the extra epoxy mostly by squeegeeing parallel to the keel (normally one does it by squeegeeing from the keel line to the sheer (where the gunwale will go)--but in the case of these shallow-vee hulls this is a bad idea because it pulls the epoxy-sticky fiberglass out of the keel line with every stroke, and it has to be massaged back into place, which creates lots of little bubbles.
So I'm cautiously pleased about that. Of course, last time I thought everything was fine and discovered the huge bubbles the next morning. So we'll see.
Also I have done some practice (instrumental stuff in the morning while listening to NPR) and moved the daylilies Beth gave me into a heeling in bed, and done a load of laundry and exchanged the music stand that was slantways for one that is straighter, and bought new strings for the octave mandolin and bought sandwich fixings for tomorrow's League meeting and also food for myself because I was out of a bunch of stuff. I still need to do some more practice though.
I hope you folks had a productive day too.
