March 11, 2021

Lively Heels Phase 3-29

Thursday

Once the fiberglass cured, I trimmed the excess that hung over the edges and sanded it flush, then very lightly sanded the entire surface to prepare it for epoxy coating.  In this case, I chose to fill the weave of the cloth with coats of liquid epoxy, rather than fairing compound, since the finer, lighter cloth required less work to bring to a smooth surface, and to avoid the possibility of inadvertently sanding through the cloth.  For right now, however, I didn’t have any rollers on hand, so I had to await the epoxy coating till a couple days hence.

Meanwhile, I installed some 3/8″ tall fiberglass “feet” to the bottoms of the two deck boxes, securing them with thickened epoxy adhesive.  These risers would keep the boxes just clear of the decks and promote water and air flow beneath as needed.

With foam rollers on hand a little later in the week, I applied, over the course of a day, two good rolled coats of epoxy over the two lids.  This seemed to be enough to fill the weave adequately and I decided to leave it there pending a light sanding to see how flat I could get the surfaces.

Total time billed on this job:  1.5 hours (over two days)

0600 Weather Observation:  35°, cloudy.  Forecast for the day:   Mostly sunny, 53°