New Photos! Still making good progress too.

Things have still been going steady, I received word that I will not be heading out of town until the first of next week (that is if my bid gets the job) so that gives me more time to work on the boat.

I took some needed photos of my progress today, I think they turned out great!

Yesterday afternoon I coated the dagger board with one coat of epoxy, put a second coat on the inside of the dagger board trunk and glued the two pieces together. Everything went smoothly and they both looked great this morning.

(Click the photos for a larger image)



First thing this morning I started sanding the boat down. On the inside of the boat, the fiber glassed seams had two coats of epoxy on them and they were still pretty rough so I gave them a good sanding with my orbital sander (witch doesn't have as much since I knocked it off on the floor yesterday) and it is ready for another coat. I sanded the outside of the hull good also so it is ready for another coat of epoxy and then paint.

Since I put the dagger board trunk and the dagger board together I figured it was time to take the big step and cut a hole in the boat. It really wasn't that big of a deal once I trusted all of my measurements and marks. I cut it out with a jig saw with no problem and it was correct!




Since it has been cool here I have been sitting my epoxy resin and hardener in a large window in the mornings so that the sun will heat them up. Today I think I left them there a little to long and they heated up pretty good, which isn't always what you want. When I mixed the putty up I could tell the cup was already warm in my hand and since heat speeds up the curing time I knew that I didn't have long so I started applying the putty pretty fast. All went well up until the end when the putty was getting hard on me. I still slapped it all on and it didn't look to pretty.

I decided to go ahead and fiberglass it in. I cut the glass to fit and then mixed my already warm epoxy resin and started to wet out the fiberglass. I got about half way done when my cup started melting from the heat (the epoxy was getting hard!). I quickly dumped it out on the boat where I needed another coat of epoxy and spread it out. I decided not to do anymore epoxy the rest of the day, but that doesn't mean I was finished.

Throughout the day I had been gluing the strips of wood to my oar shafts that make up the wide part of the paddle. Once I had them glued on I started to shape my paddle down and I finished up one and then called it a day and went running.

Here is a photo of the paddle being glued together, I didn't think to snap one of the hand-planed oar, but I will tomorrow.

Making good progress is exciting, I can't wait until tomorrow to get back to work!