Lackey Sailing | PT11-41

December 20, 2024

PT11-41

Friday

After first trimming the excess fiberglass from the gunwale edges and mating bulkheads on the two sections of the hull, I lightly sanded the mild fiberglass edge where the bottom fabric overlapped that on the sides of the hull, and also lightly sanded the entire hull all over to remove gloss and begin to smooth the epoxy fill coat. The initial fill coat on all areas still left some indications of the texture of the cloth beneath, and for the best finish I wanted to apply a second fill coat over the entire boat. I used a palm sander with 80 grit for much of the work, and finished off by hand at the corners and edges where needed. Then, I went over the entire hull once more with a Scotchbrite pad to help remove any remaining gloss without compromising the surface.

Before continuing with the fill coat, I had to add some fairing compound to ease the transitions where the bottom cloth, and the cloth at the stem and parts of the transom, overlapped, leaving a small ridge. Using a fairing mixture made from 410 fairing filler and cabosil, I troweled these areas smooth, and left the material to cure for a couple hours, awaiting it to gel firmly enough to coat over.

Meanwhile, I trimmed the excess glass from the edges of the skeg, and lightly sanded the first fill coat on both sides. The side that had faced down on the plastic sheeting initially was mostly smooth, but had a few voids, so I filled those with a skim coat of the leftover fairing compound from the hull, and left it to semi-cure for the moment.

Later in the day, the fairing compound had set up enough to continue, so I prepared more of the fill coat mixture and applied it over both hulls and gunwales, spreading the material with a 1/4″ nap roller and then finishing it off with a foam roller. I was pleased with the results of this second coat, and felt it was completely worthwhile even though I’d hoped one coat would be enough.