Make it stop.......

Still raining, first sunny day on the forecast is Saturday, so keeping my fingers crossed. I have found some time to cut the trace templates for my bulkhead and internal supports, so at least that's done.

The Waiting Game

I am really ready to get going on finishing the moulds but mother nature won't cooperate with me...... I need to drive them in an open trailer 35 miles out to my new digs, but its rained every day since shooting, so they just sit in the shop.........waiting.

Touch of Grey

Drove 45mins to the paint shop early this morning to meet Cliff because its shoot day. We put all the forms up on whatever could be found (yes those are tires under the deck tool). Then one final hit with some 80grit to make sure there wasn't any dirt left from the ride through the mountains. Washed everything really well with Acetone, and it was time.



My painting skills are not up to standard for something this important, so I just stayed in the corner playing mad scientist, mixing batch after batch of Duratech/MEKP/Acetone, while Cliff shot everything.




The foredeck, I know a strut is lighter/less windage, but I don't think it looks right.


Crew deck (not perfect fairness, but better than I thought.)



The Master admiring his work.......It's almost impossible to get a real feel for the hull shape when the tool is splotched with 5 different colors of fairing compound and wood, so its an awesome feeling to see everything primed. Took about 4 hours to shoot everything with 3 coats (25min between coats for gas-off). It took exactly 1 gallon of Duratech, I have to go to EBS and bug Eric to sell me a pint for Monday, because I don't have any left over to do the fill. All three pieces are curing and should be ready to move to my new shop for fill/sand/buff/polish, hope to get around to it within the next couple days.

Moving the tools.........again.

As I've posted before, I'm moving, and today was the day to move boat related things. My Buddy (and finish guy) Cliff Wege was nice enough to drag the hull tool the 30 miles through the mountains to his paint/body shop where we'll be spraying everything later next week with Duratech. I loaded the other two plugs into My Ford "Pimpstar" and followed him out. I don't want to spray that stuff around my family and animals, and I also don't want all my new neighbors first impression of me being "that's the guy who makes the whole neighborhood smell like toxic stuff". I guess if you have a Friend with a huge shop with pro spray gear who lives in the middle of nowhere, you should take advantage of it.



This is Cliff, he's shot more paint than anyone I know. Speed boats, cars, motorcycles, rock crawlers.......they always look fantastic. I wouldn't trust anyone else to do the job. ( And he likes to get paid in whisky, so that's easy)



Here she is, just waiting for me to find the time to get back in build mode.

Hold please......

So I'm in a pretty good spot with everything, all the tools are sanded and faired and ready to be shot with tool surface. I'm on hold for now, because my family and I are moving down the mountain (thank God). I currently live at 8500ft, where vacuum bagging isn't possible, but I will now be taking up residence at 5100ft (with a huge 2 car garage) so its all coming together for the next phase. Best part is there is a nice sized reservoir about 2 miles away out in the flats, so pretty nice winds that arn't crazy shifty. I'll keep y-all posted.