Day 10

Today... Sucked.

I got an early start, but had to top up my resin and cabosil... and make a supply run to get more gloves, paint brushes... so 7:30 turned into 8:30... turned into 9:00. It rained last night, so I had to pump out the bilge (backed up cockpit drain...) and clean up the boat. Turned into 9:30...

I decided to take on the port bulkhead and glass in the PVC pipe/starboard tabbing in one shot then move outside the boat.

I had the port bulkhead out around 1:00, and the bulk of the tabbing gone at by 2:00. I used the 7 inch grinder which I have nicknamed... "The beast" as its 13.5 pounds, 8000 rpm... and 4 horsepower. I put a 40 grit italian made flap disk on it, and took the tabbing down to the first layer of mat. (I've used a half dozen of these particular disks on that grinder on Noel, so no sweat on putting scars anywhere... My dad said that when he came to the boat, it looked like it was on fire as dust was coming out of the forward hatch in puffs like smoke. I knocked over my fan and experienced a total white out...

Today was the first time I've ever tasted styrene through an organic respirator... and the second time I've found myself quite tired... and vision going funny, as the pre-filters on my respirator got so totally blocked with glass dust I was working at an altitude higher than sea level...

The bad news, is my big shop vac died... inhaled a glove, and I had not turned the set screw to tighten the filter in place... wound up in the fan. Got the glove out, but no motion... must have popped an internal fuse or fried the motor. I use this big shop vac to suck up most of the dust, by grinding in directions toward the hose... when its not trying to tear my tyvek suit ioff me... So I had to vacuum the boat three times, for my own sanity. I stepped on my sawzall, which was hiding in the dust in the bilge... then I couldn't find my 4.5 inch grinder...

I'm somewhat messy, though not dis-organized... but one thing I can't handle is a heavy layer of dust coating everything, as my mind works visually... Don't think straight when the world is shielded... Probably why I'm not much for snow. (Grin)

That was the relative success.

I shot myself in the foot. I did the bulkhead removal prior to sanding the fillets I did on the starboard side. The epoxy work I did last night blushed worse than I've ever had it, and I mix 5 to 10 gallons a month... you could have used the hull as a slip n slide... if it were not for the razor sharp peaks of thickened mix here and there... so it took a while as my scotchbrite became smaller and smaller, and the chunks coming off larger and larger... till finally it was blush free. Epoxy when it cures has a tendency to have the free floating amines in the mix float to the surface, leaving a waxy like substance that nothing will stick to... Luckily it dissolves in water and gets somewhat easily removed with scotchbrite.

Since... I started hand sanding my fillets almost 24 hours after they were done... the epoxy was well past green, and nothing soft about it. I spent three hours cleaning them up, as my little ridge had re-amerged as a slightly smaller little ridge. I also had to get rid of the waves that were in it, having not yet mastered the art of vertical, curved, acute corners...

Effectively, my day was done at 1:30... though I didn't leave the boat till 10:00 pm. A frustrating day, but tomorrow I have a little more grinding to do, and then the glass goes in.

Zach

Forgot my camera.