Wa'apa Build - Part 30 - (exterior sealing)

Last couple days have been spent in a sanding, filling, epoxy sealing loop....


Hull exterior left nice and shiny after several coats of epoxy. To be followed by yet more sanding, fairing, and eventually priming and painting.

Wa'apa Build - Part 23 (finishing the glass, graphite coating)

Been a long while since last update. I've been a combination of busy and lazy, neither of which is conducive to large amounts of progress...

With the glass layed and cured it was time to finish it off..filling the weave and such.

The corners were rounded to allow the cloth to lie down, and needed to be built back up. I used a mix of wood flour and graphite to make a thick batch of epoxy to build the edges up. 

When that cured I then sanded it to a nice fair and sharp edge again..but seem to have misplaced that picture...

With that done I then used a thin graphite / epoxy mix to finish filling the weave and coating the bottom.

Looks really good I think. One more coat and some wet sanding will really finish it off...but I'll wait until I'm further along and done banging it around so much...

On to some more interesting bits...and quicker progress I hope!

Wa'apa Build - Part 10 (Dry fit #2, syringes, hatches, etc)

With glue cured I planed and sanded the excess off the bottom. I then put that half of the hull aside, grabbed the bits for the other half, and got it dry fitted.

On another note, I found these syringes cheap and have been using them for all my epoxy mixing lately, one for resin and one for hardener.

Now I'm able to mix the small batches I actually need, and combined with experience gained thus far, I manage to use almost everything I mix without much waste at all. Great!

Also I ordered and received my inspection hatches for the end compartments, 6 inch quarter turn.

I still haven't cut the holes in the bulkheads for them though. I will have some through hull pieces of timber right behind the bulkheads on which to hang a rudder. I'll wait until I know for certain the position of those so I can place the hatch where there will be the least amount of overlap.

All for now!