Jan. 22nd-24th

As hoped everything is still going smoothly with the side panels. As a little refreshment of the past, I had some issues involving the heating in the shop. The shop is heated by an L shaped ceiling heater that works VERY well...almost TOO well. In the picture below, you can see how it is directly over my work space. At first I didn't think this to be an issue, but in fact it caused lots of bubbling on the panels which consumed lots of time and required fixing. This one section n particular, needed to be scraped free and reglassed (sorry, I don't have pictures of fix in steps)
Anyways, hopefully this issue had been resolved by moving the panels from directly underneath the heater as well as the addition of some fans to properly circulate the heat.

Now these last couple days I was able to finish sanding the exterior of the side panels to 220 grit paper and clean up their edges of excess glass. Then I flipped them and applied a flow coat of clear epoxy to each panel. Today, I will be sanding this coat and appying another!

(pre-epoxy interior side)

(one side with applied flow coat)

(both sides coated and drying)

Jan 16-18

Not a whole lot to show for my efforts these last couple days, not picture-wise at least. Have been sanding and applying flow coats to the side panels. Yesterday I finished the last coat on them and today I am completing some touch ups and most of the final sanding. Look out Monday, the side panels are getting flipped and the interior will start to be coated!

Pictures! Glassing the side Panels

Here are most of the pictures (still fixing camera) of the side panels being glassed:

First the fiberglass cloth was laid out over the sanded side panels and smoothed out to prepare for epoxy.

Next, the clear epoxy was mixed and spread over the fiberglass with a yellow squeegee to fill the weave of the cloth. This results in a nice glassy looking wood panel with no visible fiberglass


After the epoxy has had about an hour to "tack up", or partially cure to the state of which it becomes tacky, a second coat of epoxy is added to fill the remainder of the open fiberglass weave as well as add another layer of protection.
Again thank you everyone following for your patience, I will continue to work on the boat, and as soon as the camera issues are settled I will get everyone back up to date and on track with what i am doing day by day!

Sorry for the delay (technical dificulties) Dec 15-Jan 11

I want to apologize for everyone who has been checking in lately to find nothing newly updated. I had some camera and computer issues and with the Holidays these past couple weeks have been a blur. In order to save everyone from confusion I will give a quick update for now with pics to follow ASAP.

Before Christmas, I applied the first coat of epoxy (tack coat) to the sides then laid down the fiberglass. After smoothing out the glass I used a squeegee to spread out more epoxy in order to fill the weave of the fiberglass. After waiting for the epoxy to slightly harden I rolled out a second coat to fill the remainder of the weave. I left the epoxy to dry while I went away for a week to VA to visit family. Upon return I found both good and bad news. Good news was that bad news wasn't detrimental :D. Bad news was the heater in the shop had been running more due to the cold weather and had made the epoxy bubble in spots, one spot particularly was bad, and it even caused the epoxy to not fully harden there. After a couple days of sanding what I could and trying test spots. I finally ended up applying two separate flow coats like instructed to each side. I sanded coats in between to get a nice smooth glassy finish. The very bubbly section wasn't to my satisfaction however and I decided to take drastic measures. I scraped all epoxy off of the wood and cut out glass for this section and cleaned up bare wood underneath. Next I cut a piece of fiberglass to fit perfectly onto the bare wood and finished by coating it again with epoxy. So far things are looking good, and when I get back from this weekend, not only do I hope to find a pair of sides ready for finish sanding but I will also have my camera back and will be able to update the blog with pictures! Thank you all for your patience

Caleb