Something is sticky

What a difference a day makes! I cant tell you how convenient it is to have a 24 hr shift schedule. You can get so much done.

I managed to get the bottom sheeted alone. Other than one pot of epoxy that I managed to fill with 7 pumps of epoxy and 3 of hardener... Lost count, short swaring fit, decided not to risk it. 12oz of epoxy wasted is much less effort than scraping a section of fiberglass off the hull, BELIEVE ME.

MANDATORY ATTIRE:



Small garage + noxious fumes = short term buzz, long term stupidity.

Its an organic respirator suited for paint/glue fumes. Still had a pretty wicked throbber going on afterwards, but Im sure its better than if I didnt have it on. Gloves also, unless you want to develop that sensitivity hives thing. I suppose if your into the leprosy look, whatever your into.

I borrowed Ron's epoxy roller as the only one I could get around here was the Worst Marine plastic jobby for $18 plus Wa tax. Not worth it. I decided that for one person working, there needed to be a hybridized version of the wet method. I spread out one sheet of fabric, wet from above to saturation, then got out the roller and squeege. I wet out areas of about 4-6 sq ft at a time, using about 8 resin/4 hardener pump batches. Seemed to work out well with a wet edge transition. I just couldnt wet out a big enough area to work on the wet method being alone all day, so this seemed like a good idea at the time. The fabric laid wonderfully, and this technique allowed me to stretch the fabric out where I needed and use a reasonably small amount of epoxy. After its said and done, 2 gals of epoxy and 1 gal of hardener did both bottom panels and all the tape. I think with the current epoxy usage rate, Im going to get relatively close to Jacques weight. One can only hope.

8 hrs later:



Okay, now your a tiger!:



Results with my method:



And a close up of the weave:



Well lets burn up some bandwidth while we are at it. Both sides of the bow:




The light color of the fabric in the bow isnt dry area, it is the overlapping of up to 3 layers of fabric in certain areas. I did manage to get some milkiness in the bow area epoxy trying to get the last layer to lay down correctly, but its tight, there are no air bubbles, and its *relatively* smooth.

Tomorrow, round 2, the sides.....

E