Done with Glass!!!

My forearms could be in an Aveda ad. They are practically hairless due to the fact that every week for the past 6 months I have been ripping globs of cured epoxy off of them. Last week I finished glassing the boat. A rail was put around the boat to create the look of a cap, and also to hide the seam where the deck and hull come together. I sanded the edges down, and flattened everything out before glassing. I dry fit the glass as well as the peel ply, and then got to glassing. It went really easy this time. I used West Systems, which just made a really big difference. The other stuff I used is less expensive, and if I had it to do again, I would still use the cheaper stuff for mixing up cab when I need to adhere parts together, and to pull fillets. But when it comes to laying glass, I would use all West Systems. I would estimate that it would have taken me right at 4 gallons of the US Composites to wet out the top side of the boat, and it took about 2.5 gallons of West. The difference is pretty substantial.

Seth Vernon from Double Haul Guide Service, and Nick Balding from Balding Brothers Construction helped Beau and I lay the glass, which was a huge help. We knocked out the glass work in an hour, give or take.

Ready for glass

Glassed with peel ply

Painting the Bilge

Took the deck back off the boat so the below deck areas could be painted. Painted with a gallon of Interlux paint for bilge painting. Used the mini grinder to rough up all surfaces before painting. The deck is solid under my weight, but when Beau stands on it, it flexes just a slight bit, so I decided to put two sets of additional supports between the stations on the bow deck. Also just the holes out for the drain holes, and Beau happened to have a stainless sink drain at the shop, which fit down perfectly. I think the drain will actually be really unique and also really functional.

Cross members to add support for the deck.

Below deck areas painted.

Drain hole with cover.