| Circe
| Wednesday, August 5, 2009 Finishing what I started last yesterday, I sanded the port topsides with 80 and 120 grit paper, completing this round of hull sanding. Afterwards, I relocated the staging to deck height, and then vacuumed off the dust that accumulated on deck during the previous few days' sanding. While I was at it, I cleaned up the interior and vacuumed all surfaces so I could shift gears into the next stage of the project. |
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Next, I wanted to complete the deck core repairs so that the deck would be whole again. To begin, I cut glass for and prepped several areas that required small patches from inside the boat, whether to cover larger holes (such as the hole left over from the foredeck cowl vent or old deck fill hardware), or to effect minor repairs to the bottom deck skin. While I was at it, I taped over all the fastener holes forward of the cockpit, thusly preparing them for eventual filling from above. Then, I installed the various patches; it was a warm day, so the fiberglass began to cure quickly, allowing me to continue work on the new core during the afternoon. |
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I began the core work with the foredeck center strip. I cut and fit two layers of 9mm Meranti plywood to fie: the first layer, roughly 4" wide, fit into the lower portion of the deck, and a wider 6" strip filled in the remaining area above and filled in the entire opening out to the existing balsa core on each side. I elected to go this route rather than piece in balsa around the edges of a narrower, thicker strip. I shaped the lower piece as needed to fit the contours of the existing bottom skin, mainly a chamfer required at the bottom edges to better fit within the slight radius in the fiberglass. At the same time, I cut new 3/8" balsa core to fit the opening on the starboard foredeck, adjacent to the center strip and in way of the (now patched) hole where the cowl vent had been. I planned to install both plywood and balsa in the same operation. I coated the plywood strips with epoxy, and also coated the new balsa core, as well as laying a coat down inside the area I was about to recore, including sealing the open edges of the existing core. Then, I set the plywood and balsa in a bed of thickened epoxy, which I troweled in with a grooved applicator, filled any gaps around the edges, and weighted the material down after covering with plastic. |
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During the remainder of the afternoon, I cut balsa for the remaining open areas on deck--4 on the starboard side and one to port--and installed the new core similarly to that described above. |
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