Update:
Remember when I broke the hole saw? Well I did it again. This time
I just put the stub shaft into the drill and kept going. When it
binds now, it just spins in the drill chuck. Think I will keep the
broken one to avoid any more injury to my wrist.
I am going to use a leaf blower and clean out the cockpit some
tonight. I figure if I do it around dusk I shouldn’t get
too many complaints from the neighbors for the cloud of fiberglass
and foam dust I will be creating. I will make sure that the wife
parks on the other side of the house. It would be interesting
to see the face of the neighbor closest to me when he goes to
his car in the morning. Suppose I should buy him another bottle
of wine or a case of beer soon…
Oh! I got the custom engraved switch plates today. They are awesome
looking. He laser engraved eighteen of them with pre-glued backing
material for me. They will go on as soon as I get some extra time.
Update:
Bought a gallon of Bondo and a gallon of Duraglass to level out
the front deck and fill the holes that I put in the flooring for
the foaming process. Started by filling all the holes and leveling
the areas where each foam and Coosa boards meet with the Bondo.
There where three joints in both the front deck and the cockpit
floor to take care of. I talked to our painter here at work on
how best to use the Bondo and Duraglass before I started. (See
I am learning) Mixing it seems to be a bit of a guess job. Too
little and it doesn’t get hard, too much and it hardens
before you get it in place. His recommendation was to do it in
small sections. Using his advice I used the torn off flaps of
an eight inch by eight inch box to mix my patch stuff on. Also
from his advice I got some extra hardener because it was better
to put a little too much in it and have it harden faster than
for it to never harden at all.
Before mixing I cleaned off the areas first by vacuuming, then
by leaf blower and finally a rag with acetone. Then came the long
task of mixing and spreading, mixing and spreading, mixing and
spreading ad nauseum. The mixing was a pain in the butt. You have
to mix it until it is one solid shade of pink. If any portion
is still white that portion will not get hard.
Next it was my favorite part again…sanding and grinding.
After a couple hours of sanding I was very depressed to see that
there where a lot of places that had pits and many, many, places
that I couldn’t tell where not level until I filled the
area next to it. Well more mixing and more spreading followed
by more sanding…..
I ran out of the Bondo a bit earlier than expected but I figured
that I should have enough of the Duraglass to make up for it.
I had bought the Duraglass (Bondo with fiberglass fibers in it)
to make the nice rounded edge where the front cockpit came up
to meet the front deck. The Duraglass was harder to mix than the
Bondo. The consistency was much thicker and the activator was
white so there was no change in color to insure that your mixing
was complete. It was also an ugly grey-green color.
Another tip for would be Duraglass workers: Don’t get the
stuff on your stomach after you have mixed the hardener into it.
I have three painful red marks about six inches long to show for
not washing it off right away. (Can anyone say “read the
directions?) The pink stuff didn’t bother me at all. It
got hard and I scraped it off. The green stuff, on the other hand,
burned pretty badly.
After much mixing and spreading, sanding and cleaning I had the
entire front deck pretty much level. The only part not level was
right where the front deck meets the hull. Here there was a layer
of caulking that the old owner had put in. I think it was to bed
the front deck. I would have thought that 5200 should have been
used, but then a lot of what I thought should be was not done
on this boat. I will ask some advice before I decide what to do
here.
|
