Final Fill-Coat and Gunwale Timber

With the end of all this fiber-glassing nonsense within sight (at least for a little while), I was pretty excited when I started on the fill-coat of epoxy last Friday. I got up early, setting up my bigger tarp as a tent before breakfast (was to be another hot day). Then, after a quick breakfast, I happily got into it.



Firstly, I went around the sheer and trimmed all of the excess glass cloth. I found that a Stanley knife (and a bit of care) worked the best. I also cut out any big blisters and made small holes in some smaller ones. Then I gave everything another sand, vacuum and wipe down.









Then I started mixing and applying the epoxy fill-coat from the bow. Flushed with my earlier successes with the glass cloth, I felt confident in my capacity to bend the peel-ply to my will. Oh, the naivete. Let's just say that the peel-ply had other ideas (see photo below).



After messing around with it for ages, I finally discarded that foul stuff and just focused on filling the weave as best I could. I cut out small patches and fitted them into the holes of the bigger blisters, whilst the smaller ones got heavier doses of epoxy (in the hope of flooding them with resin). It all seems to have turned out OK, if a bit rough. The texture of the weave is still obvious, but I reckon I'm going to use a bit of the fairing powder on the inside to smooth it out properly when the time comes. In any case, I think that this hull is now as good as I can get it, and it's pretty much ready for the interior fitting out.

Since today is my one day off, I wanted to make the most of it. I had called my mate (Rick) yesterday, to see if his earlier offer of some gunwale timber was still available. He was as good as his word (as always), and said to lob out to his factory early today if I wanted to catch him. I arrived right on time and he pointed me at some magnificent, straight grained, quarter sawn Teak, which was almost exactly the dimensions I needed. He loaded me up with all that I needed, and waved away my offers of payment (shit I'm going to owe this bloke, big time).

Once I got this lot home, I had a bit of a think about it and worked out whether or not I have enough (turns out just about perfect).



Then I set up my trusty convertible table/drop saw in the shade (it's ridiculously hot today), setting the fence to the right width. Then I carefully ripped each length individually, leaving me with a stack of almost correctly sized Teak strips for my inner and outer gunwales (plans specify 10mm x 40mm, whilst this stuff is 9mm x 37mm).






Beautiful. This is going to look shit-hot when it's been varnished.



These bits still have to be scarfed into the correct lengths, then I can fit the inner and outer gunwales; quickly followed by the bulkheads, ring-frame, stringers, seats and then decks. I hope I can get through these jobs quickly now because my next study period is looming again (end of February), and I know that I'm going to get slowed right down yet again then.