Topside Fiberglass

I can safely say I have figured out how not to do this.  The first thing to note is that this is now a 3 step process. I cut the fiberglass in two places so I could do a third at a time. I know cutting the fiberglass is not optimal. But I just can't work on it that long to get it all done in one shot. Doing the bottom was an entire day's work, and it did not have any odd features to work around.  It think I've whined about that before, so I'll move on to lessons learned.

My approach of clamping the fiberglass in place did not work. I ended up with waves in the glass around  the corners of the hatch opening trim.  I'm not that worried since I will have plenty of filling and fairing work to do anyway so I can fix the waves at the same time. The filling and fairing is mostly going to be to hide a the overlapping layers of fiberglass.  Next time I will fiberglass corners and odd features using fiberglass tape first.  Then I will cover the large sections with fabric.

It was good to be out in the boat shed. Even though fiberglassing is my least favorite job.  I'm beginning to think everyone should build a boat.   It does not have to a boat exactly, I suppose it could be anything, but it has to be an ambitious, personal project, sans a due date. Even though I haven't made it to the boat shed much lately. My life is better for it.

Below is a picture of how I left it. One more section of topside glass to go.

Back to Work!

A lot has been going on, just not much to do with the boat.  My brother and his family moved here from Texas, so I flew down to help him drive up, lots of fun and a cool experience. The other piece of news is that I am now officially back in the workforce. I took an aerospace job, so the boat will become a weekend project from here on out.

Speaking of the boat. I did do some good stuff today. I heeded Bernd's advice and used a router to round all the deck edges. Having this bearing bit helped since the roller at the end of the bit prevents gouges. I first got this bit to make mouldings for a house remodel it has been an incredibly useful thing ever since.

Here is a shot of sine of the edges after seeing the business end of the router.

I have talked about how cool it is that fiberglas moves in its weave before, but got a picture of it doing so where the deck hatch opening makes and outside corner on the deck. You can see the weave tighten near the corner.

I blocked up the hatch opening to get the fabric to settle itself to the shape I want. When I apply the epoxy I will try to sneak up on this area in the hope of keeping the glass from moving.

Last picture is how I left the boat to sit until tomorrow.

The Seahawks are playing an early game tomorrow. So after the game I'm heading out the boat shed.