I began by trimming the excess fiberglass from the gunwales and other areas, using a sharp knife to cut the fabric right at the edges of the boat.  Then, I did some light sanding prep work at the to edge of the boat and at the transom, where the topsides fabric ended, to ease that transition a bit for the new fiberglass on the bottom and transom.  I sanded down onto the hull a couple inches as well, to smooth and remove the gloss from the first fill coat.  I also block-sanded the gunwales to bring the overlapping fiberglass back flush with their faces.

For now, my focus was on completing the sheathing and fill coat on the remaining areas, so further work on the first fill coat would wait till another day.  The fill coat looked pretty good overall, but there was still some cloth texture visible through the coating, and I figured I’d do a full second fill coat on the entire hull once the bottom work was done.

To continue, I made a few reference marks and masked off the bottom of the hull about 1-1/4″ down from the chine on both sides of both hulls.  This mark would ultimately be where the bottom cloth would end.

I laid out the pre-cut pieces of 6 oz. cloth across the bottom, letting it run wild over the tape.  In the bow section, I skewed the cloth a bit to one side at the stem, leaving me a large enough scrap piece to cut and fill in the pointy end of the stem; at the stern, I cut one more piece of cloth from the roll to cover the last 18″ or so of the hull.

I wet out the first layers in place, then carefully rolled out the second layer (4 oz. cloth this time) from the bulkheads towards each end, and wet that out too.

Next, I used a sharp knife to trim the material at the top edge of the tape lines, and removed the masking tape.  This left a good double-overlap of cloth at the lower chines:  the topsides’ cloth extended 1″ or so onto the bottom panel, and the bottom cloth extended 1-1/4″ onto the topsides, providing more than 2″ of overlap when all was said and done.

I glassed the transom next, wetting out the transom surface and then unrolling the cloth, which I’d prepared by rolling both ends in towards the center to make it easier to align the cloth properly.  I trimmed the edges roughly 1/2″ wide all around, and rolled the material over the rounded edges of the transom and onto the hull and inwale respectively.

Next, I turned to the gunwales, which required two layers of fiberglass on each half of the boat:  two layers of 6 oz. cloth on the bow section, and a layer of heavy unidirectional fabric plus a 6 oz. layer on the aft section.  I started by rolling on a coat of slightly-thickened resin (with cabosil) to the gunwale faces, which would help the material stick to the narrow, vertical plywood edge grain.  Then I installed the two layers in turn, starting with the bow section.  As usual, the work with the fraying edges of the cut cloth looked terrible at first glance, but the ragged edges, despite their awful appearance, were ultimately unimportant since what mattered was that the cloth was well-adhered to the flat faces of the gunwales.

Next, I installed the material on the stern half, starting with the unidirectional fabric, then the 6 oz. cloth over the top.  I let these strips run out an inch or two onto the transom.

Later in the day, I returned to apply the fill coat to the bottom and transom, again using the mixture of epoxy thickened with 410 filler.

I used some leftover fill coat to fill both sides of the skeg, which I’d previously trimmed of excess glass. I laid the first side down flat on fresh plastic while I did the second side.

Everything was ready, so I got right to work wetting out the hull sheathing fabric.  The process was unremarkable and posed no issues.  At the stem, I wrapped the cloth around and over so that it overlapped roughly an inch on the opposite side; the second side did the same, doubling the amount of material on the stem and the first foot or so of the bottom panel.  Then, to top things off, I installed two tapered layers of 4 oz. cloth that I’d previously cut; these extended from the knuckle to the top of the stem and overlapped one another, as well as the seams of the overlapping main layers beneath.  I left excess cloth to overhang the gunwales and at the amidships bulkheads.

At the transom, once I’d wet out the cloth I trimmed the excess length to leave about 1/2″ of cloth, which I then wet out and wrapped over the rounded transom corners.  On both hull halves, the cloth wrapped over and onto the bottom panel by an inch or so (more at the forward end of the bow); I’d install the sheathing on the bottom in another round of work next time.

While waiting for the fiberglass to cure enough for the fill coat later in the day, I prepared the fiberglass for the outboard edges of the gunwales, and fiberglassed both sides of the skeg after sanding the glue-up remnants from installing the fiberglass base cap.

In the afternoon, the resin had gelled enough that I could install the fill coat on the hull. For this fill coat, on advice of the book I added 50% by volume of 410 microlight filler to the resin (I started with an 8 oz. batch of resin, and added 4 oz. of the filler, firmly packed).  I used a 1/4″ mohair roller to apply the epoxy to the hull, spreading it as evenly as possible, then finished off the work by rolling again with a foam roller, which helped smooth out the texture.  As the material leveled, it achieved a glossy texture.  I hoped that this application would be heavy enough to completely fill the weave of the cloth, but only time would tell.  Other than adding thickness to the coat, the filler had the main advantage of helping the epoxy cling to the hull with far less inclination to run or sag, as it might tend to do in an unthickened state, and I was impressed with how well this seemed to work.  Another advantage was that the filler would make the coating much easier to sand flat and smooth.

I got a late start on the day after an offsite appointment, but my first task was to lightly sand the interior of the stern half to finish off the minor fairing work.

Next, I reinstalled the mating hardware and connected the two boat halves together again for the first time since cutting the boat.  I did this on the benchtop, supporting the ends with some blocking as needed to bring the bulkheads flat together so I could start to engage the threads of the four connecting bolts.  It took a little doing to get things aligned, but before long the boat was reconnected.  Sometime later in the build, I’d install some alignment hardware that would make this process foolproof on the water.

I turned the boat upside down on the table–not the easiest thing to do now that I’d gotten used to the easy-to-maneuver boat halves–and prepared to do some minor fairing work at the hull seam.

The seam was tight and mostly flush, and required only the lightest of touch-ups with a sanding block to ensure it was straight and fair across.  I finished off the hull prep by dressing up the remains of the hull by hand and as needed; because I’d done all the hull fairing and filling work much earlier, and incrementally as needed, this step didn’t require a lot of time or effort now.  I vacuumed and cleaned the hull, and separated the halves once more so I could set them up on the bench for fiberglassing.

I did a little more work on the daggerboard trunk next.  With the fiberglass strips now cured, I added some small epoxy fillets in the four corners on each side of the boat (foredeck and bottom). Those fillets could cure and be ready when I was ready to sand these slots flush with the foredeck and hull in another day or so.  For now, this wouldn’t affect what I wanted to do next.

Because the hull sheathing required epoxy fill-coating on the same day, to ensure the best of bonds between the fiberglass and the second coating, I planned to start the actual fiberglass process in the morning, so that gave me the rest of the afternoon to cut all the fiberglass required and get things set up.  The manual called for cutting four pieces of 6 oz. cloth 25-1/2″ wide and six feet long by cutting the full cloth width in half, but I found that the roll of cloth was only 50″ wide, making this a mathematical impossibility.  There certainly wasn’t enough cloth to cut the required widths and discarding the not-quite half left over, but fortunately I found that 24″ width was just enough to cover the boat as required; these sections of cloth extended from about an inch over the bottom hull panel to the edges of the gunwales.  I did some rough measurements on the boat first before committing to cutting the four pieces of cloth, just to be sure.

I started by laying the panels out on the forward half of the boat, which was a bit more involved because of the narrow stem.  I laid the cloth dry as directed, and used several push pins to help hold it temporarily.  At the stem itself, the cloth would wrap around slightly to the other side, and I trimmed it as needed before folding the cloth back on itself and with additional push pins to hold it.  Then, I repeated the layout on the opposite side.

The stern half was more straightforward, but given the minimal width of cloth available, I found that it was only just barely wide enough at the widest part of the boat to extend both 1″ on to the bottom panel, and over the entire bottom side of the gunwales as required.  But it was enough.  Just.  Again, I used temporary push pins as needed to secure the cloth for now.  I left the ends to run wild over the center and transom.

The fiberglassing would take place over two days, and two separate operations, to allow the bottom panels to be installed as intended, so the four sections needed for the first day were all set to go.  To prepare ahead, I cut the fiberglass required for the bottom panel on each half of the boat:  a piece of 6 oz, plus a second layer of 4 oz. to give extra impact and wear protection to the bottom of the boat where it would be needed most in practice.  Cutting the two pieces of 4 oz. used up the rest of the roll provided, and this didn’t leave me enough 4 oz. cloth for the required transom piece, so I cut that out of 6 oz. instead.   This shortage probably happened because earlier for some small part or another I’d had to cut fresh 4 oz. cloth to fit when the instructions called for using scrap–but I’d no scrap that fit at that time.  And I didn’t even use the 4 oz. cloth for the interior chine tabbing, as the directions had called for; that would have left things even more short.

My only real complaint with the contents of this otherwise excellent boat kit is that the amounts of material are a bit sparse or otherwise insufficient, and allow no room for error, variations in how one cuts or uses things, or anything else at all.  I ran out of copper wire when I wired the hull and had to buy more, and now I was out of one of the weights of fiberglass, which would probably domino into eventually running short on the 6 oz. cloth somewhere later in the process because I had to steal some now for the transom.

But that was a problem for Future Me.  For now, I was ready to get the hull glassed starting in the morning.

Over the weekend, I applied a second fill coat of epoxy to the fiberglass on the gunwales, bulkhead edges, stem, and transom areas.  I decided on this second fill coat because the heavier cloth used on many of these parts didn’t fill as completely with the first coat, and to help ease the various transitions between layers of fiberglass and adjacent areas.  The book suggested this might be the case, and recommended the second coat as well.  Before applying the second build coat, I trimmed the fiberglass close to the various edges with a knife.

Now, with the build coats cured, I set to work sanding all the new fiberglass to smooth the surfaces and bring the edges flush all around as needed. This was all hand work with small foam sanding block that I like and 120 grit paper.

It was time to open up and finish off the two ends of the daggerboard trunk.  I started by drilling a 1/2″ hole through the foredeck over where I knew the trunk to be, which allowed me to use a router and a straight pattern bit to cut out the opening.  I used a small square-edged sanding block to square the corners afterwards, since the next step required it.

On the bottom, I’d drilled a 1/2″ hole through the boat just before installing the daggerboard trunk a while back, and used this to open the bottom slot as well, squaring its corners the same way.

To finish off these openings and provide a wear surface for the daggerboard to slide and rest against, the book called for slim strips of G10 fiberglass, which I had to cut to fit all four sides of the openings top and bottom:  long edges first, then the short ends to fit tightly between.  I dry fit all the pieces and labeled as shown.

To install the strips and before departing for lunch break, I started with a coat of unthickened epoxy on all the plywood edges within the slots, using a fast hardener mix so the epoxy would have a moment to partially set up before continuing.    Then, in the afternoon, I installed the fiberglass strips with a thickened epoxy mixture, which was enough to hold things in place:  first the foredeck side, then the bottom side with the boat flipped over.  I kept the fiberglass just barely above the finished foredeck and hull surfaces so I might bring the edges perfectly flush with light sanding later.

Meanwhile, I continued some of the early prep work on the skeg.  I sanded the new epoxy trailing edge I’d formed last time, bringing it smooth at the tapered plywood ends and leaving about a 3/16″ flat on the trailing edge.  Then, I supported the skeg upside down with three screws driven through the benchtop and slightly into the skeg, and installed a long fiberglass wear strip on the bottom edge, first wetting out the surfaces with unthickened epoxy then a thickened epoxy adhesive mixture.  I taped the fiberglass in place, with a clamp at the thin forward end.

The fiberglass extended past the forward end of the skeg–later it would be cut to a specific length–and I used some of the leftover epoxy (thickened even more) to fill the small step between the plywood and fiberglass there, so that I could sand the transition smooth later.

The remains of the day and the state of other parts of the boat gave me a good opportunity to do a bit of prep work inside the aft half of the hull, where I installed fairing compound to ease the edges of the hull chine tabbing as needed.  These edges had been more noticeable than I wanted because my peel ply strips during installation weren’t wide enough, and at that time I didn’t fully understand the purpose of the strips as a means to fair out the transitions, which is the main purpose of the peel ply as used on this particular build–something the manual could, but doesn’t, stress during the earlier stages of the build.  Since the interior of the boat was to be painted, the minor fairing work would not be noticeable.

From here, the next major step would be to sheathe the hull exterior in fiberglass.  I’d already brought the hull to a state of readiness for this, even though I’d first have to assemble the cut halves for the first time and check the hull fit and fairness at the seam, so unlike the manual description that seemed to assume no exterior work had yet been done, I did not have to approach all the hull fairing work now, but there were still a few areas where I could–and now did–touch up the previous work to prepare for the fiberglass ahead.  This brought the day to a natural conclusion.

I spent the first part of the day on various sanding and milling tasks to prepare for fiberglassing a variety of “edges”, to provide an encompassing term.

I milled a roundover on the junction of hull and gunwale on both sides of both boat halves, and sanded it smooth, along with lightly sanding the filled gunwale installation holes on the inside of the hull.    I also sanded flat the breasthook and the protruding nub of the gunwales forward of it, and rounded the aft top edge of the breasthook.

At the aft end of the bow section, I block sanded the vertical bulkhead edges to clean them up, and then sanded a bevel into the aft edge of the foredeck where it joined the bulkhead.  The bevel was required here because this edge required fiberglass for protection, but since the foredeck had to remain completely flush with the bulkhead when all was said and done, the bevel was required to give space for the fiberglass.  I used a sanding block with a piece of 1/4″ plywood taped to the bottom side to easily create the angle for the bevel.  Once I’d sanded in the angle, I rounded the top corner.

On the stern section of the boat, I also rounded the transition between hull and gunwale, and block sanded the bulkhead edges, while also fine-tuning the roundover I’d previously installed on the top edge of the transom inwales.

With all the sanding and milling operations complete, and the boat vacuumed and cleaned up, I started by installing a fillet beneath the breasthook, which I accomplished by inverting the bow half on the bench and leaving the bow hanging well out so I could crawl, hermit crab-like, into the space and form the fillet with relative ease.

Next, I turned to the day’s main event to install fiberglass over the breasthook, gunwales, and bulkhead edges on the forward half of the boat, using the various cloth I’d cut last time.  There was one layer of 6 oz. cloth to cover the tops of the gunwales and down onto the interior of the hull, one layer of 4 oz. cloth to cover the breasthook and wrap over its aft edge, and two layers of 6 oz. at the vertical bulkhead edges aft.  The aft edge of the foredeck received one layer of 4 oz. cloth covered in peel ply to smooth the transitions, and  at the gunwales, I installed peel ply below the hull edge to smooth the transition onto the hull.

On the stern section, I used two pre-cut pieces of 4 oz. cloth to cover the inwale, wrapping over the transom edge and overlapping the green tape I’d placed there (the fiberglass would later be trimmed at this  tape line), and more 6 oz. cloth over the gunwales, with two layers of 6 oz. on the aft bulkhead edges.  Again, I installed peel ply beneath the hull edge to smooth the transition of the tabbing onto the hull.

Later in the day, I applied an epoxy fill coat to all areas.  After, I trimmed the fiberglass at the transom and pulled the masking tape.  The 6 oz cloth, particularly on the gunwales, tended to drain the resin a bit to the low (outboard) sides, so I thought I’d likely roll on another fill coat on the morrow to completely fill the weave of the heavier cloth.  This would probably be required on the bulkhead edges too.

Now that the forward half of the boat was gloss-coated on the inside, it was time to permanently install the foredeck.  I applied unthickened epoxy where needed to prepare bare wood or plywood edge grain, then installed beads of thickened epoxy adhesive on all bearing surfaces:  mast step and daggerboard trunk; the hull edges along the foredeck; the edges of the foredeck itself; and the aft bulkhead and cleats.

I set the foredeck in place and secured it with the 11 screws and little pads.  I had good epoxy squeezeout everywhere, as there should have been.

Next, I cleaned up all the excess epoxy and removed masking tape as needed.

Belowdecks, there was also good epoxy squeezeout everywhere, visible only through the eye of the camera.

With the foredeck installed, now I could move on and install the breasthook.  I had to modify the aft part of the edges to get the pre-machined part to fit closely enough into the curve of the stem and gunwale (it didn’t need to be a perfect fit, just close).  To hold it at the proper level, I hot-glued some small alignment blocks to the top, which blocks rested on the edge of the hull planking on each side, and glued the breasthook in with the usual routine of epoxy priming and thickened epoxy.  The gunwales continued their curve above the height of the forward end of the breasthook, but this area would get trimmed down once the epoxy cured.

Despite keeping the photos above all together for continuity of the project, in reality I did the breastook fitting first, then, before installation, I installed epoxy fillets along the intersection of foredeck and hull.  With leftover epoxy, I filled the holes at the gunwale leftover from its original installation; I hand-milled small countersinks at each hole location before filling it with the thickened epoxy.

While I was finishing up this work, the power went out, always my favorite thing.  We’d survived a doomsayer windstorm overnight without issue, but now, with bright sunny skies and only moderate wind gusts of perhaps 25, we lost it.  But the shop was bright, and I had no immediate need for power tools, so I continued working on various preparations to their natural end.  The power came back on around 1400.

I turned my attentions to the stern half, which required some minor preparations before tomorrow’s planned work.  As with the forward half, I filled all the gunwale installation holes, and also touched up the various alignment slots in the transom and stern quarters. I should note that my filling/fairing technique has always been to sneak up on the final result with multiple levels of fairing application as needed, never to overfill and sand down.  This is one place I have consistently differed with the instructions in the build manual for this boat.

At the same time, I used some of the epoxy to fill a second time the screw holes at the gunwale reinforcements I’d installed earlier.  The top transom edge required rounding over, which I accomplished with a sanding block.

The next major step in the process was going to be to install fiberglass reinforcement on many of the exposed edges, including the tops of the gunwales, the exposed bulkhead edges, breasthook, and transom inwale.  To this end, I cut various pieces of fiberglass and peel ply to size as directed in the manual.  There’d be a bit more sanding and milling prep to certain areas before I could do the glasswork, and with curing epoxy everywhere that would be the first task next time.

To get a bit ahead of the future game, I did one minor step required to the skeg, which was the last major component to finish off the hull itself.  As described in the manual, I tapered the aft edge of the plywood skeg on each side, then built a little dam of three layers of masking tape on both sides and injected some thickened epoxy material into the gap.  Once cured, this would give the trailing edge of the skeg the hardness of epoxy–exactly how will make itself more clear in subsequent steps.  The skeg would be sheathed in fiberglass before installation.

With the fiberglass sheathing on the bulkheads cured overnight, I set the boat halves back up on the bench ready for more work.

After trimming the excess fiberglass with a sharp knife, I block sanded the faces flat with 120 grit paper, and lightly block sanded the hull faces to bring the cut fiberglass down flush.  I lightly block sanded the edges of the bulkhead to make the fiberglass flush there as well.   The slow hardener was only just barely ready for sanding, and a few areas where the resin had been thicker during application were still too gummy to properly sand, so I’d come back later and quickly resand both faces as needed.  I trimmed the fiberglass from the fastener holes and gasket slot, and cleaned these areas up as needed.

At the gunwales, I block sanded the fiberglass flush on the three sides, being careful to maintain the original gunwale shape since these were crucial to realigning the boat later on.

The instructions called for some reinforcement at the gunwale ends, taking the form of stainless steel screws driven in to the structure in a specific way and saturated in epoxy.  I marked and drilled the holes in the detailed way described, dry-installed the screws as a test, and then, with the boat tipped up on one side and then the other, installed the screws after first pouring unthickened epoxy into the holes.  I cleaned up any excess epoxy.

I used the leftover epoxy to mix up a small batch of thickened filler that I used to cover these screw heads, and also go over the various assembly slots in the stern quarters once more.

Now I could move forward with the final preparations to install the foredeck.  Using the lines I’d previously marked on the underside to outline the various structural members to which the foredeck would ultimately be secured, I sanded the glossy epoxy in those areas to prepare for bonding.

Next, I set the foredeck in place and, with a long straightedge, checked that it was flat and true:  the foredeck was supposed to be planar from the bulkhead to the stem, while resting firmly on the daggerboard and mast step areas, and I wanted to be sure the forward tip didn’t droop at all.  Everything looked good.

I remove the foredeck again and, working from the underside, marked and drilled pilot holes for a number of screws (11) to help secure the foredeck temporarily during final installation.  Then, I reinstalled the foredeck again and secured it dry with sheetrock screws and little plywood pads, then checked beneath with a camera to ensure the foredeck was  tightly against all the required structural members.

I liked the way the translucent mast tube fairly glowed with the light from above…somehow a 70s sort of lava-lamp vibe.  The area beneath the foredeck would make a groovy pad, zoinks!

I used a marker to trace the bottom edge of the foredeck on both sides where it met the hull, and, from abovedecks, I masked along the top edge of the foredeck all along its perimeter.  This tape would be helpful to ensure proper alignment, but was really in place to protect the hull from excess epoxy during installation.

The black mark below represented the bottom edge of the foredeck, and also demarked the top extent of the final gloss coat of epoxy that would be applied next.

After masking just above the black line, and also masking off the hardware locations at the lower gussets, I applied a gloss coat of epoxy to all these areas, which would be the final finish.  I rolled and tipped the epoxy, and brushed in the corners as needed.  Once the epoxy was applied, I removed the masking tape, leaving just the strip along the hull at the top edge of the foredeck.  Once the  gloss coat cured overnight, I could move on with the final installation of the foredeck.

With some epoxy leftover, I coated all sides of the breasthook piece, after first rounding the lower aft corner with a router and a quick overall sanding.  I suspended it on  nails driven into the bench and with their heads cut off.  This could be installed once the foredeck was in place.

After laying the dingy sections back on the bench, I removed the masking tape from the new epoxy edges.  The tape left a clean line on the hull side, but as expected there was excess epoxy extending past the planes of the bulkheads.  At the eight fastener locations, the epoxy had stayed outside the holes and threads.

With a firm sanding block (2×4) and 80 grit paper, I sanded the excess epoxy flush with the bulkheads and gunwales all the way around on both halves of the dinghy.  I applied a strip of masking tape on one side of the block, over the sandpaper, so that the abrasion of the flat bulkhead surface would be minimal while I cleaned up the edges.  Once the edges were flush, I lightly sanded the entire surface with 120 grit on a small sanding block.  I also very lightly sanded the hull surfaces to ensure the new epoxy was flush and level–just a quick scuff to look for sanding marks on the epoxy.

The next step for the conjoining bulkheads was to fiberglass them, but before I dove into that task I checked ahead to see if there was anything else I could do to more significantly advance the project first, since fiberglassing would stop all other work once I’d done it.  But I’d already finished up any other components of the boat that I might have worked on, like the foredeck, which I’d already pre-fitted and now awaited just its final installation once the bulkhead work was done.  So although it would force a quick end to the day’s work on the boat, I moved forward quickly with the fiberglass stage so that I’d have time late in the day to apply the fill coat of epoxy as well.

I stood the boat halves up on their respective ends once more, and cut 4 oz. fiberglass as directed to cover the bulkheads on each side–one larger piece with two smaller pieces to cover the narrow bulkhead tips on each half, roughly cut to fit with some material left to hang over all the edges.

Next, I wet out the fiberglass in place, working again from the top of the work table.  I left this to set up for several hours while I worked on unrelated projects.

Late in the day, the resin had cured to the point that I could apply the usual fill coat of resin over the top, to fill the weave and leave the surface more or less uniformly glossy.

Over the weekend, I applied a quick second round of epoxy filler, focusing mainly on the forward upper port bulkhead where the saw had slightly wandered, to fine-tune the filler I’d applied earlier.

Now, I block sanded the repairs flush and smooth.

I took a few moments to lightly sand the fresh fillets on the aft tanks, and the epoxy-filled alignment slots on the hull.  These slots would require another round of filler whenever I had some material leftover in the near future.

Happy with the results, I moved on and, again using the sanding block, sanded a chamfer into the edges of the hull on both halves, including around the gunwales and slightly down the inside edges of the bulkheads on each side.  The flat of the chamfer was roughly 3/16″ wide.

Next, I applied two layers of masking tape to the hull, leaving it to extend past the chamfered edge and some margin past the face of the bulkhead.  I applied this tape in sections, first pressing two layers of tape together on a flat metal ruler, then applying them to the hull, securing the tape tightly to the hull flats.  This masking went around the gunwales and onto the interior edges of the bulkheads as well, just past the area where I’d ended the chamfer, leaving the chamfered void clear open.

When the masking was done, I propped the two boat halves up against the bench, with the bulkheads facing up, and secured them so they were level in both directions.

I mixed thickened epoxy to a loose consistency with high-density filler and a bit of cabosil, and used a syringe to apply it into the chamfered edges all the way around on both sides.  This time, I realized my bench was amply strong to walk on, so I could work off the benchtop instead of from a ladder, which was much more convenient for this fussy work.

I used the leftover epoxy, applied very carefully with the tip of a nail, to fill the edges of the hardware holes, bringing the epoxy up so it met the edges of the bulkhead at each hole.  I kept the epoxy away from the threaded and unthreaded holes in the hardware, but tried to bring the fill out as close as possible to the centers of the hardware.  This was truly fussy and nerve-racking, and I came back a couple times shortly thereafter to check the epoxy and make sure it wasn’t tending to flow into those threaded holes.

I had unrelated shop tasks to complete later in the day, which was just as well since at this point there was nothing else I could do to the dinghy till the epoxy cured.

After returning the boat halves to their normal orientation, and with the epoxy-potted hardware fittings cured, I removed the peel ply from the aft tanks’ new fiberglass tabbing, and lightly sanded the areas as required.  The epoxy was still a bit too soft to sand properly, but all I really needed to do was clean up a few of the corners to prepare for the next step, which was more fillets.

Note that if I’d been building this boat to be a clear interior finish, I’d not have used a marker to mark the fiberglass tape when I cut it.  This boat will be painted inside.

After cleaning up the boat, I applied epoxy fillets around all the outside edges of the tanks to complete their installation.  These were cosmetic as well as structural.

With leftover epoxy from the fillets, I filled the alignment slots around the transom and stern quarters of the hull.

I turned the two parts of the boat upside down on the bench and hung the bulkheads out over the edge a bit, and clamped each half at the opposite end just to hold things in place. I used a scraper, putty knife, and solvent to remove the remnants of the balsa wood spacers and adhesive.

The hull planking was mostly flush with the bulkhead panels, especially at the bottom three panels of the boat, but in other areas the hull was proud of the bulkhead.

With a firm, heavy sanding block (a piece of 2×4 in this case), I sanded these areas flush with the bulkheads.  I wrapped a piece of masking tape over the bulkhead end of the sandpaper on the block, which raised this end up just enough so that my sanding efforts didn’t affect the existing bulkhead surface much or at all.  Most of the required work was at the top edges of the bulkheads on both halves of the boat (now facing down towards the bench with the boat upside down).

Because my saw had wandered as I began my early cut through the port upper gussets and gunwale–though I corrected it immediately–there was a roughly saw kerf-width ledge in the bulkhead there, which extended over a relatively large portion of the area because of the near-vertical orientation of the saw at that time.  There were other minor saw marks hither and yon that required work as well, but this particular one, being at the edge of the hull,  would affect the next “normal” steps outlined in the manual, so I needed to fair this in now, before I could really move on.

After preparing the bulkhead halves, and masking over the hardware and gasket slots as needed, I applied epoxy fairing compound here and to the other areas as needed.  At this stage of the project, there was nothing else left for me to do till this epoxy repair work cured; the next step from here involved creating an epoxy edge at the sharp corners of the hull/bulkhead intersection all the way around both parts of the boat, but that would have to wait till I’d brought this particular section back to its proper contours.