All the rest of that week I kept
hoping that the glass would harden. I even put a fan on it for
two days...but it stayed a sticky white mess. The following weekend
I spent removing the gunk and grinding the glass back to redo
that portion. In the end you could barely tell that it wasn't
all done at one time:)
Update:
Saturday was honeydo day but Sunday morning found me donning
my Tyvek suit and mask to do my most favorite thing of all...grinding
fiberglass. Even though I had on long pants, socks, shoes, a shit,
a mask, gloves, eye glasses, eye shield and the Tyvec suit I still
ended up with itchies all over my body:( But good news...I saved
alot of money..err I won't have to do any more grinding for a
while.) The rear cockpit drainage was formed out of the duraglass
and I gave the last few inches of the cockpit floor a slight decline
to help it work. (I hope)
Then I went on to grind all of the surfaces of the cockpit to
ready it for fiberglassing. Once done I used that awesome shop
vac to clean it up. Next week I will try to get the cockpit glassed.
Untill then I still had a few things to get done. My next target
was back on the front deck. Since the front deck is flush all
the way across there was nothing to stop things from rolling into
the water. I wanted to put a lip around the front deck both to
stop things from going overboard but to let me know I was getting
to the edge without having to look. (So I didn't go overboard)
I talked to a few people about the subject and it seems that
most thought I should just "build up a ridge with duraglass".
Well I already did the duraglass thing and didn't want to use
that so looked for an alternative. I finally came up with the
idea to use foam trim moulding and glass over it. But first I
called the guys at Fiberglass Services to ask their opinion. The
guy thought about it for a minute and then said that I had a great
idea and that he liked it so much that he may do that with his
boat.
Off to Home Depot I go for three lengths of moulding. I chose
some that had a flat on one side that dropped down in steps to
a lip of about 1/16". In order to make the moulding curve
around the bow I cut slots into it and slowly bent it to the angle
I wanted. This cut and fit method was slow and tedious, But by
the days end It was 5200'd and screwed in over the front section.
I ended up about 18" short after using the three sections
I had purchased. Bah next week. Now I am going to play some more
computer games.
UPDATE:
I spent most of Saturday cleaning and sanding the cockpit floor.
I spent extra time on this step to give me a flat flooring surface.
Sunday I helped clean up around the house in the morning but
as soon as lunch was finished I headed out to the boat.
I started out by wiping it down with acetone twice. Then cut
out two panels of mat to fit crossways across the cockpit with
about four inches extra length and six inches of overlap. I then
cut two panels of biaxial running lengthwise. I again gave the
panels about four inches excess to go up the sides, but butted
them together without any overlap.
Once the parts were “roughed in” I used a good pair
of scissors (She won’t miss them) to make all of the edges
a bit straighter and provide holes for the live well hoses.
After rushing and swearing at myself between buckets of resin
during the fiber glassing of the front deck I decided to use more
up front time getting ready for the wet out process. This time
I set up eight glassing “kits” across the front deck.
Each kit consisted of a 62 Oz bucket of resin, a small container
of hardener set for just under 1:1 ratio, a stir stick, and a
cheap paint brush. I also set up two buckets of acetone, two rollers,
and a box of rubber gloves.
This time it went much smoother. I peeled back the biaxial to
uncover the mat layer at the right rear. I wet out and rolled
the first three feet of mat. Then flipped the biaxial back over
the wet mat and wet out and rolled it. I did this in 3-4 foot
sections starting from the right rear moving forward to the right
front, then from the left front back to the left rear. I finished
the last section just as the sun was going down. The entire process
took me about six hours including an hour of prep time. After
another hour of clean up I was ready for a beer and a hot shower.
(And then another beer)
The next morning I was up for work a bit early so that I could
inspect last night’s work. I was really happy with the results.
I didn’t see one bubble and the finish looked like a half
inch of glass lying over the foam:).
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