'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.