Bottom Covered

I took the day off Friday to work on the boat. There is something about doing this sort of thing on a day where one does not take away time with the family that makes the process a bit more enjoyable.

Of course, having only a 4 day work week helped, too.

The second coat of resin was very glossy, but a little bumpy here and there from drips. The cloth from the patched areas was a little rough in places, too, but that was expected.

Two hours or so of sanding with the orbital sander and hand sanding smoothed everything quite nicely. By the end of the process it sounded like the filter on the shop vac was pretty clogged with the fine resin dust. It will need to be cleaned for the third time this project!

I flipped the boat upside down, resting on the front of the cockpit and on some foam blocks near the middle of the rear deck.

Additional 4 inch wide 45 degree bias cloth tape was cut from the 6 oz fabric. This was needed to tape the edges of the hull. Segments of cloth to cover the bottom were cut from the 4 oz roll, with the width more or less the width of the bottom panel.

A T-shaped slit was cut in the cloth that was destined to cover the hull where the stuffing box emerges.




Lastly, pieces of 12 oz biaxial knit cloth were cut to reinforce the lower bow and stern.

With the garage door open and the wimpy ventilation fan running, I put on my resin jacket and latex gloves, adjusted my organic vapor filtering respirator mask and started mixing the first cup of resin.

One cup doesn't go very far on virgin wood. It was barely enough to wet the wood, the fabric on the bottom panel and the tape on the seams. Some of it was applied to the 12 oz fabric for the bow - yes, that stuff sops up resin like a sponge. Anyway, it is far better to apply the resin to that cloth while it is sitting flat on shrink wrap plastic than to try to apply it to dry cloth on the sides of the hull. Picking up the saturated cloth and molding it to the hull was trivially easy. I didn't even need to clamp it in place once the air bubbles were worked out.

The rest of the boat took about one cup of resin per bottom panel of cloth, working towards the stern. Along the way resin was applied to the the sanded or still bare wood sides of the hull, turning it to a warm, rich color. Resin applied to the previously sanded resin areas went on very thinly. Resin applied to the wood was a little thicker. At first, one could easily see the old resin as darker blotches, but after a while it all merged into the same color.

3-1/2 hours later, the last bit of the stern was completed.

As I had some resin remaining I applied it to the outside rear joint of the seat back and the top, placing some tape over the joint and some scrap pieces over the top rear side joints. Given the strength of the wood and the interior fillets and taping, this should be adequate. The front of the seat will get 6 oz cloth and possibly 12 oz along the side seams, though 6 oz is probably enough for there, too.

Now that almost all the wood has been sealed I can turn off the dehumidifier!