Odds and Ends

Mast
I finished up working on the Mast for the time being. I had a couple spots that I wanted to fill with thickened epoxy and actually a small crack that I filled at the bottom of the mast. Hopefully that won't come back and haunt me. After doing that I sanded everything with 120/220 grit and should be ready for 2 coats of epoxy. With limited space in my garage for 16 feet pieces, I decided to wait a while and focus on getting the boat flipped back over.

Inside Finish
I need to finish up the inside and paint/varnish those areas that will be hard to reach. I decided instead of painting everything, I am going to us epoxy/varnish as the finish coat in some areas. Mainly the roof of the cabin and underneath the cockpit deck. I like the look of the unpainted wood. So last weekend I spent a lot of time sanding, filling holes, sanding some more and then putting a couple of coats of epoxy on. I haven't decided about a coat of varnish, but I will probably put a least a couple coats on to make it look good. I will have to see if I can get some pictures.

Rub Rails 
I did some sanding on the rub rails of the previous coats of epoxy, since they looked bad. I guess you would call it orange peel look. I remember coating them in cooler temperatures and I don't think they cured properly causing the wrinkle look. So I sanded down both sides and had to put a couple coats back on due to sanding through the epoxy. I will need to do the final sanding carefully and then put many coats of varnish one.

I will sand off the areas this weekend and hopefully get a couple coats of varnish on with the long weekend.

Varnish
I bought the stoplossbags from CLC and built the little stand for it, only to find out that the kit came with a funnel and I really don't need it. Oh well, it didn't take 20 minutes and I only used scrap wood.  Maybe I will use it as my wine class holder! :-) LOL! actually I may have something here. More to come.

Working on the Mast!

Okay it seems like all I have been doing is working day job and taking trips on the weekend. Out of the last 4 weekends, we have taken 2 trips, one was Easter, so very little time for boat building. I did get a chance to work on the mast some. 

I was able to glue up the mast with lots of epoxy and get it all clamped up. I bought some extra clamps, but could have used more. I think I counted 52 clamps. I basically used everything I had. 

Below are some pictures of the glue up. 

After the mast cured for a couple days, I moved outside to use the belt sander to take off all the extra epoxy that squeezed out. The belt sander did a quick job of removing it. 

I then used my orbital sander to give it a once over with 80 grit. I have yet to do much finish sanding on the spars. I will probably do all of them in a session when I get time and start epoxying them. Manual calls for 2 coats. 

While I was outside, I decided to use the 1/2" round over bit on all the edges. Glad I was outside, since the router was throwing saw dust all over the place. Clean-up is easy with the leaf blower! :-) 

Below are a couple pictures of the mast. 

If you notice in the pictures above, you will see a couple dark places. I had epoxy lathered on heavy, so I was a little surprised I had some very small gaps that needed to be filled. I just got some thickened epoxy and made sure I filled the gaps. In a couple places I did 2 applications. I don't think this will be any problem, but wanted to make sure I didn't have anywhere for water to work it's way in. The 2 coats of epoxy will help seal up things as well.

I also did some work inside with filling some holes. I am going to be working on touching things up inside, so I can do the painting under the deck prior to flipping the boat back over.

Next up is finishing the mast and then start on the painting inside and have another flipping party. Need to go buy more beer!