January 7, 2025

PT11-50

Tuesday

While there were still small jobs to do, I allowed myself an hour or two first thing in the morning to accomplish what I could before shifting focus to my other ongoing project.  To begin, I flipped the foils over and applied a gloss coat of epoxy to the second side, same as the first.

Next, I worked on the rowing foot braces.  The kit came with a paper template to locate the braces, which I used quickly to locate four large patches of masking tape on each side, then replaced the template so I could accurately mark the locations with little marks at the four corners of each slot.  I repeated this process on both sides of the boat.  I held each of the eight braces in place and cut around the base with a knife, so that I could remove the tape from the footprint.  I labeled each foot brace and location accordingly.

I masked each brace completely for protection, then installed them in a thickened epoxy mixture, cleaning up the excess glue but leaving all the tape in place for the moment.

After a few hours, I carefully removed the tape from the hull, but left the tape in place on the braces themselves as I didn’t want to jar the still-curing epoxy.  I left the braces to cure overnight, and would remove the remaining tape in the morning.

Total time billed on this job today: 2 hours