The Glass Slipper

I think I'm on the downhill side of this build. With the exterior glassed and filled we are at 140 hours. The interior remains to be glassed, coaming & hatches to be fabricated, deck lines to be added, and  halves to be joined. The hull looks great. Looking back on it, I'm glad I started with the deck.

After a thorough sanding of the fill marks on the hull, the short on glassing of the hull was as follows:

1. the extra layer on the "football" (bottom) was placed diagonally on a bias. This allowed for the cloth to lay down more easily.
2. I used a razor blade stuck perpendicular on a stick which I marked about 2' from the waterline. I wish I had taken a picture. I came up with this device after I lost track of the seam I was following as a reference. The 2 strips merged in contrast.

   

   Football glass is barely visible under top glass

3. laid the second layer over the whole. The only caution here is that you mustn't finish sand through the top layer of glass. After wet out, the edge wasn't perceptible. There also was no cutting of cloth at the stems since it sat down so well. Very nice.
   
4. take a deep breath and wet the boat out. This requires some additional patience as saturation takes a bit longer, but given enough epoxy, it does happen. Proding with a chip brush can help on the more stubborn areas.
5. I started in the center on one side and worked toward both ends simultaneously to always have a wet edge to work from. No problems.
6. The remaining squeegying (is that a word?) goes as planned. 2 fill coats and you are done.

I will say the lower temps (low 60s) after starting at 75 do seem to stretch the fill coats to about 8-10 hrs apart. Also, the flash point of the epoxy is mellowed too and not so abrupt. This worked fine for me. Coat 1 was at 8pm and the second 6am with final near 5pm. Recoating before the epoxy gets hard is critical to avoid sanding. I haven't done it and don't want to.

Sooooo much nicer then before & just 1 coat. I like the "stitches".

after 2 fill coats

Unlike the deck, I added a 3rd. now it looks right.

Not much to show in the pictures aside from a noticeable and dramatic difference. Yeah, I've impressed myself and my hat no longer fits. Hey hey hey ...