Page 12 - Fairing the Hull

Cockpit Recess, Epoxy Putty, Lots of Planing and Sanding!

I finally finished the cockpit recess. Unfortunately, I didn't take any picture of it until I had the boat inverted to start sanding the hull. Here are a couple of pictures:

This picture has been rotated 180°. The boat was upside down, so I had to crouch down and shoot up at the cockpit.
		Another picture that was taken while the boat was upside down.

I've decided I'm going to glass the outside of the deck before I cut out the real cockpit opening and start the coaming riser.

Once the cockpit recess was done, it was time to flip the boat over and start getting it smooth, so that I could put some fiberglass on it. I did a lot of the fairing with a small plane, my small palm plane: With all the planing I've had to do on this boat, this little plane has been invaluable!
After lots of planing, I used the random orbital sander. I used several packages of coarse disks. First I did a rough job of sanding. Then I filled the cracks with epoxy putty - epoxy resin mixed with wood flour to the consistency of thick peanut butter.

Here's a picture of the work in progress:
This shows the putty filling cracks (the dark brown streaks). The putty also colored the wood around the cracks, which meant a lot of sanding after it hardened. The epoxy putty is tough stuff, which is why I used so many sanding disks. Thank goodness my sander didn't die (an unsolicited testimony for Porter Cable.)

Here's a picture of a section of the hull after I finished sanding:

After the entire hull was smooth with coarse paper, I went over it with medium, fine, and extra-fine grain (220). With a random orbital sander, 220 makes for a very smooth surface. It was time for fiberglass!

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