The Fairing Begins

Well, the bottom glassing turned out pretty well overall. It seems we should have used a little more epoxy than we did with the peel ply, because when I pulled it off, the surface wasn't totally uniform.


In places the weave didn't fill in completely, but the peel ply did smooth things out nicely and sucked excess epoxy out of areas where we'd put too much. Places where the weave didn't fill in all the way looked like this.

First thing to do was a quick pass with the sander to open up all the little pockets a little bit. This is my current setup.

The shop vac really eliminates most of the dust, makes your sandpaper last longer, and in this case, kept all the little holes from getting filled with sanding dust. A little information for the uninitiated: surpassing the previous champions, diamonds and a mid-90's Phil Anselmo, epoxy without any fillers is officially the hardest thing in the world. It laughs in 60-grit's face. But a little bit of time last night and I had the weave opened up a little.

The peel ply really did suck things down pretty well because if I sand just a little below the surface, I start hitting glass. Next, I mixed up a very thin fairing compound. A mixture of phenolic microballoons and silica is added to the normal laminating resin to thicken it to the consistency of runny ketchup. I smeared this all over the hulh with a spreader, making sure to make some of the passes in the direction of the weave. The purple color is from the microballoons.

The mix was made so thin so it would settle down into the weave and it worked great. It's tough to capture in a picture, but the weave filled most of the way in, with very few of the pinholes that indicate a bubble was trapped inside.

I have a ton of sanding to do on the sides of the boat and around the transom. The peel ply made a mess in these areas. I already hit them with a paint scraper, so that should cut down on time a little. I'll fill the weave on the sides and then probably switch from the microballoon mix to Quickfair. This is a Silvertip product that is basically like epoxy-based marine bondo. It's very thick, cures in three hours, and sands like butter. It's also pretty expensive. I'm in the fairly common position of being both poor and fundamentally lazy. But to me, it's entirely worth it to spend an extra $50-100 on the hull if it will save me hours of sanding time. I haven't even started the real fairing yet and I already detest sanding. I have to admit that the idea of the amount of work I'm going to have to do to get this ready for primer is a little overwhelming. I let it rest for a few days to try and relax but everytime I do that all I think about is how I'm going to do the next step. The thing won't leave me alone. I'll just try and follow my plan of getting at least one thing done each day and I'm sure it will all come together.