Living with Mistakes: Getting Ready to Fabric-Cover the Outside

Thursday, Sept. 30

Yesterday and today were spent moving along two unrelated projects.

I sanded all the filled holes yesterday, and refilled about a dozen places which I either missed or filled unsatisfactorily.  Today I found that these refilled spots had failed to cure overnight. I think the catalyst I used was too old. I had no reason to think waiting longer would help the bad epoxy mixture to cure, so I scraped off the excess, sanded, and wiped the spots with acetone. Those will be potentially weaker spots, even when covered with fabric and epoxy, but there's nothing more I can do about it, and I don't think they will be much of an issue anyway.

Also today I rolled out the polyester fabric and cut pieces to cover the bottom and topsides. As if I wasn't already feeling stupid, it turns out I ordered one yard of fabric too little, so it won't reach the stern on the starboard side. I have enough offcut pieces to make up the difference, but I will have an overlap bump near the stern on the bottom and topside. I'll have to smooth that bump with filler and sanding. Extra work which would have been avoided if I had just ordered enough fabric. Even so I don't have enough to cover the rudder, so I'll have to order more.

I am ready to take the plunge and cover the bottom and sides with fabric set in epoxy. I want to do that whole job in one day because as long as epoxy is tacky I can add more and it will bond chemically. If I let it harden I would have to let it cure and sand it before adding any additional epoxy.

The other project is the sprit. Yesterday I marked and cut the taper, using the method I described in my last post, leaving it a tapered 4-sided stick. Today I marked it for 8-siding and planed it down to those marks. Then I 16-sided it by eye with a plane, continued to plane off any perceptible edges, and sanded it round. The job went more quickly than the mast did. The sprit is a smaller spar, and I had the comfort of having made the mast using the same method and skills, which I have not forgotten yet. All three spars are now ready to finish.

Finally, as I was cleaning up at the end of the day, the sailmaker called to let me know the sail is finished, so I'll try to also fit in a visit to the sail loft tomorrow.