Equinox Project | Thursday, December 18, 2008

Having completed the rough-fitting of the new divider and ends of the bilge space yesterday, they were ready for final installation this morning.  To begin, I cut pieces of 4" wide fiberglass tape to fit in all areas, marking them and setting them aside.

After acetone-washing the areas, I applied thickened epoxy fillets to the corners of all three areas, reinforcing the seam and creating smooth transitions to the adjacent surfaces.


    


After allowing the fillets several minutes to partially set up, I wet out and applied the fiberglass tape, beginning at the bow bulkhead and continuing aft.  I left the fiberglass to cure the remainder of the day.


    


I also applied some epoxy around the aft end of the new bilge drain pipe, to seal off the slight gap around the pipe.  I couldn't see this area directly with the existing access hatches, so I applied the epoxy by feel; I see from the blind photo that I missed smoothing out a small ridge of epoxy above the drain.



While I waited for the fiberglass in the bilge to cure, I worked again on the woodwork down on the bench, finishing up the sanding of the pieces that I had on hand (there were additional bulkheads in the boat that I planned to remove for the same treatment later).  As always, this took a surprising amount of time.  Afterwards, I reassembled the companionway trim and milled two small new pieces to replace some that had been slightly damaged during removal.  I secured the top arch pieces together with their original dowels and new epoxy, and reassembled the newly-milled teak to some of the existing trim so that these pieces would be ready for additional work tomorrow.


    


Total Time on This Job Today:  7 hours

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