At long last, tonight it was time for the bottom glassing. As this was my first time working with fiberglass, I approached the job with a little apprehension. But things went smoothly. Unthickened expoxy was mixed, and liberally dumped on the sheet of glass cloth that had been smoothed over the bottom panel. This panel, by the way, is probably one of the easier surfaces for a first time glasser to do: it has a gentle, horizontal concave curve where gravity helps to keep everything in place. The epoxy gradually wets out the cloth, soaking it and adhereing it to the wood panel, while at the same time becoming amazingly clear. A rubber spatula helps to spread the epoxy, smooth out wrinkles and air bubbles, and remove excess epoxy. The result was an exterior bottom panel that will ultimately be glassed on the exterior and interior surfaces, giving structural strength and abrasion resistance to the hull. The instruction manual calls for a wait of a few hours for the epoxy to reach "gel" stage, at which time excess cloth can be trimmed off. However, colder weather has returned to the area, and even with a space heater under the hull, the curing will be a slow process. Trimming will probably have to wait until tomorrow morning. Total hours 40.75.
With my increasingly busy schedule, time management is important to allow reasonable boatbuilding progress. After a commute home that is slower and more frustrating every day (a disadvantage of living in the fastest growing county in the state), a return to a workout regimen, a quick dinner, and some household administration, perhaps an hour or so is left every evening to further the Passagemaker dinghy boatbuilding. Now that the next step of glassing the hull has arrived, I needed to finish some prep work tonight in order to complete the glassing in one evening. First was a return to the tedious job of sanding. Filled stitch holes, stray drips of epoxy, and previously unsanded bottom panel scarf joints needed to be tended to. Since only the bottom panel is glassed on the exterior, the adjacent #1 strakes needed to be sanded smooth so they could be masked with tape. This prep work took the better part of tonights effort. And while doing it, I was reminded of an old TV commercial. Readers of a certain age might remember the sudafed commercial that featured Apollo astronaut Wally Schirra. While holding up a space suit helmet he asks, "Ever sneeze in one of these?" I seem to have acquired a mid-winter sniffle, and my nose continued to drip inside my respirator as I sanded.
