December 24, 2024

PT11-43

Tuesday

The various newly-epoxied areas, including the skeg fillets and several miscellaneous patches on both hulls, required a light sanding to finish off.

This pretty much brought the exteriors of the hulls up to the point required before primer and paint, other than a need to fill the screw hole at the forward end of the skeg.

Next, I turned the hulls over so I could finish off several interior details, starting with hole-filling:  the slots where the skeg attached, and the screw holes from installing the foredeck.  Respectively, I masked off the slots, and used a countersink to make small divots at all the screw locations before also masking around them.  On the bulkheads, I chamfered the edges of the alignment pin holes, which would require epoxy coating within, and also sanded around the holes located at each corner of the inwale and in the breasthook, also to prepare for coating.

I sanded the protruding mast tube down so roughly 1/16″ remained above the deck, using a sanding block with a couple tongue depressors glued to the surface as guides.

I filled all the screw holes and skeg slots with a thickened epoxy mixture, and used more of the same to fillet around the mast tube.  I applied some of the fairing filler to the inwale to ease the transition where the transom fiberglass wrapped over the edge.  Then, with some unthickened epoxy, I coated the various holes I’d prepared earlier, and also coated the inside of the bulkhead gasket slot one more time.

Finally, I prepared two slim fiberglass shims that I had to install on the aft hull bulkhead for the eventual alignment clips.  I shaped the shims to fit into the corners of the bulkhead, and installed them with epoxy adhesive and tape to clamp.

These small details were some of the few remaining before the interior of the hull was also brought up to readiness for primer and paint.  A few other small tasks lay ahead, but those would be for after the holiday break.

Total time billed on this job today: 2.75 hours