December 10, 2024

PT11-31

Tuesday

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.

Total time billed on this job today: 3.5 hours