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.
2 comments:
Then one final hit with some 80grit to make sure there wasn't any dirt left from the ride through the mountains.
80? Don't think so! That would have set you back a couple weeks.
It's amazing what a coat of paint does - color doesn't matter. Major milestone passed - congrats.
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Bill
Thanks Bill
But I really did do a quick light pass with 80grit on a hand pad just before the acetone wash......I thought it would be a little much myself, but that's what they do at EBS as the final surface prep to get the duratech to stick really well, so I did. Shot the duratech and it filled everything, who knew?
Its funny, I thought I would be sailing by now, instead I'm just starting to get to the meat of it. I still enjoy the time I spend in the shop very much, I wish I could just sleep in the garage for a couple months and knock it out, but real work and family time always take priority over boat building. The world economic climate has also played its roll, when I started I had a nice "Boat Fund" set aside, but that disappeared very quickly when the $H!T hit the fan, turned this into a "pay as you go" kind of thing. I have enough $$$$ still to build the hull, but not sure how I'm going to pay for the rig, foils, and sail. I Started this project as a journey to kind of find myself (pre-midlife crisis?), and I'm learning more in that area than probably any other, I'm not going to give up, but I have to come to grips with the fact that its going to take longer than I thought. The project is really pushing on me emotionally. Definitely a good thing. Back to "its the journey, not the destination" kind of thinking.
Sam
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