June 20, 2016
Rhodes 5
Monday
After a quick water wash, I sanded the hull with 80 and 120 grit paper on a 6″ orbital finishing sander, removing the excess skim coat of epoxy and further smoothing the surface. In most areas, this treatment had had the desired effect: while the surface was far from, and never would be, perfect, the skim coat had helped to fill and stabilize the heavy crazing throughout. Some of the deeper divots, mainly on the port side, would require some additional filling.
Similarly, I sanded the deck areas, which showed a like improvement in overall condition and character after the skim coat and additional sanding. The decks were probably far from truly fair even when this boat left the factory 60 years ago, and was rather flexible with any number of (basically unnoticeable to the eye) dips and curves and the like; while the skim coat had filled some of the lower (and minor) undulations, I would make no overt attempt to really fair either hull or deck beyond these basic levels, other than ensuring relative fairness throughout the epoxy filling process. As with the hull, there’d be certain areas requiring additional filling for this process.
After vacuum and solvent wash, I applied additional epoxy fairing material to the hull and deck as required, concentrating on those areas where the original cracking or damage had been deep enough that the initial coat hadn’t completely filled the voids. I hoped that this round on both hull and deck would more or less wrap up the basic surface prep in those areas; the interior and some portions of the deck (mainly the mast partners area) would require some additional work and minor repairs, which I’d get to in due course.
Total time billed on this job today: 4.75 hours
0600 Weather Report:
50°, clear. Forecast for the day: sunny, near 80