Lots of work - just boring to look at!!

It seems like ages since I made an entry YET I've spent several hours each night on the boat. In my last post, I had just finished the first coat of epoxy on the glass. Since then I've double glassed the bottom, i.e., put another layer of cloth on the bottom of the hull starting just above the chines, and put on two more coats of epoxy. You can only put one coat of epoxy per day so that slows down the whole process.

Tonight I took a break from the outer hull and flipped the boat over to work on the inside. The order of the night was filleting the chines. The first thing I noticed when I flipped the boat is that it's a fair bit heavier with 1.5 coats of 6oz glass and 3 coats of epoxy. I've also added 3" wide 6oz fibreglass tape up the stem and stern. The hull is a helluva lot stiffer than when I just had the joins tacked with epoxy!!

Fillets near amidships.

How it's done - using a piece of plywood shaped to make nice neat fillets.

I still have the stations in place. I figured I'd leave them until the fillets set up although I'm pretty sure that once the outside of the hull was glassed/epoxied, I could've taken them out!!

I've left the third coat of  epoxy unsanded for now so it may look a little "off" in the images below. I've decided that there's lot of work left to do so why try to get the final finish on the hull. I still need to tie the deck in, so I'll leave the bottom of the hull for now. Still, it looks pretty decent right now . . .

Stern view from the top of the stairs

Looking fwd from the top of the stairs.

Bow shot

Aft looking fwd

Straight up the stern

Stern shot

The next major task is glassing the inside of the hull. One layer of 6 oz glass with two coats of epoxy should be fine. Strangely enough I am almost finished my first gallon of epoxy. I thought a gallon would have gone further but I guess not. My coats of epoxy are quite thin - still some weave showing on the third coat  - but I guess an 18 foot boat will require more materials! I'll pick up another gallon tomorrow in anticipation of doing the inside of the hull over the weekend.

My rubber hatches should be here any day now - which is good because, after the inside of the hull, the next big ticket item is the deck.  Not only do I need to determine hatch size/location but I need to determine what shape/size cockpit I want to go with. I may copy the cockpit of my wife's Prijon Seayak. It's a nice keyhole that is tight but not too hard to enter/re-enter.  I've also come up with an idea on how to fit my new Brunton compass that I got for Christmas. We shall see.

So, that's my update and as the title sez - lot's done but not exciting enough to post about!!