Fair play

We finished initial fairing of the deck with two passes of filling and sanding.  I suddenly recalled why I don't enjoy sanding with the long board around 25% through the second pass when I blew out a lung (okay not really, but it felt like it).  Luckily Dawna came to my rescue and helped finish fairing the deck (she's such a stud!). Then we rotated the hull to work on the outer side of the hull.  Although this half wasn't exactly the best half at the deck level, it is nearly perfect below deck.  So rather than making a lot of extra work, we filled a few areas that needed some help and left most of the side untouched.  I figure I will take care of the very subtle waves between foam planks when I skim coat the glassed hull in a few weeks.  Hopefully I will only need one pass for the few areas needing attention.  Then we will flip and repeat on the inner hull side.

'Fair thee well ...'

 We finished closing up the port float hull by permanently installing the forward access port.  I had to redo the glass backing flange because the first one wouldn't allow the insert to sit flush with the outside of the hull.  So I cut it off and tried again.  As you can see in the photo, the second time was the charm and the insert is very flush.  The extra filler on the insert is part of the first steps in fairing this hull.

If you recall the last time I faired a float hull, I started by striping the hull with putty using a notched squeegee.  Sanding down the stripes revealed high and low areas.  I decided to try a different approach this time in an attempt to minimize my pain and suffering.  Note that we already filled all of the holes and seams in the foam.  I started by sanding the foam with my 60" long fairing board.  The high spots tended to get sanded down while the low spots were left untouched.  I didn't go too far with the sanding, just enough to show a distinction between high and low areas.  We don't want to remove too much foam since the thickness of the foam core is important for maintaining the stiffness of the structure.  Once I finished sanding the deck, I started building up the low areas with a light filler putty (150 mL epoxy + 1.25 cup microballoons).  After the filler is cured, I will go over it again with the fairing board and repeat.  I hope to need only two passes with the filler and fairing board to achieve a reasonably fair hull.  I am also going to finish fairing the deck before we roll the hull to one side, and then finish that side before rolling to the other side.  This should reduce the time spent sanding, filling, and rolling.

The outer half of the float (right side in the photo) was the second half we made, oh so long ago, and the first made with the heat gun.  Apparently I had some learning to do because the bow end needs some work to equal the fairness of the inner half.  In any case, I am building some areas up with multiple layers of putty, otherwise the putty tends to sag.  This makes it even more important that we keep the putty mixture light.  Luckily, only the curve from the hull side to the deck in a section about 18" long (shiny area in photo) is significantly out of fair.  The rest of the hull is typical (at least typical by my standards), requiring only skim coats of filler in scattered areas, mostly along the seams.  I'll let you know how this approach to fairing works in my next post.

Sealing up the port float

 We finished all of the interior tasks and just about finished closing up the float.  Here is a shot of the bow after it was closed up and trimmed.  This means we are close to warming up the long boards again.

 Here is a view of the bow from the inside.  If you compare this to the similar photo of the starboard bow you will note that this one is much neater with less excessive putty.  Not sure it matters to anyone but me since no one really ever sees the inside of the bow.  But it makes me feel like I am doing a better job when it looks neat and professional.  In the upper right next to the bow plate you will also note a lump, which is the threaded backing plate for the bow eye strap laminated to the hull.

We also trimmed the stern plate in preparation for fairing.  A sailor walks into a boat house and says to the shipwright "You've got a nice aft!"  Sorry, I had to say it!  It is hard to see, but we also finished filling all of the holes left over from forming the foam core and the seams between foam planks.  To aid in fairing, I also closed up all of the ports with the cutouts.  Nothing new, same process as with the starboard float.  I like to think it went a little quicker and turned out a little better.

The last port to close up is the forward temporary access port used to install the bow compression beam.  We are done with it, so we are closing it permanently.  This is a little tricky because we can't get to the interior to tape the inside of the port.  In the photo the cutout is epoxied to a piece of bi-directional glass.  This is cured on the float deck to take on the form of the deck so it fits the contours of the opening better.  Once it is cured and trimmed, I'll apply some thin epoxy filler to the glass flange and pull it up against the inside of the opening to cure.  This worked on the starboard hull but wasn't pretty.  Hopefully this one works as well and maybe looks a little better.  Of course, from the outside, it gets faired along with the rest of the hull and disappears.