Glass work

Started the glass work in the cockpit a couple of days ago. I finished fairing the largest area -- three holes on a vertical surface -- and fixed a leak where bolt holes for a turning block passed through the cork core, but still need to do the hole where the stern pole was mounted and the hole for the deck vent.

The one for the old vent is the worst. It's a 4" hole in the deck and cut into about an inch of the core. the core near the hole rotted out and disintegrated and after I dug out as much of the bad as I could, it looks like the void I need to fill is about 8 - 10 square inches. Since it's so big, I'll need to replace the core and reconstruct both the top and bottom laminates. I'll start by fixing the bottom, then glue in the core. At that point, I'll just be left with a regular deck hole that's fast and easy to fix. Sounds easy, but gluing fiberglass underneath a flat surface is a messy job.

That's exactly what I had to do the fix the leak caused by the bolt holes for the turning block. I ended up cutting away the cork since it just caught the edge and didn't affect much. However, it was directly overhead and I had resin dripping all down my hand while I was waiting for it to gel. I probably would have been better off if I'd waited a little longer. Of course, this was done while lying on my back in the starboard cockpit locker. I only mention that because I've spent a lot of time lying on my back in those lockers and working overhead lately. I had to spend a couple hours with a hammer and chisel in the port locker to remove the stern post sleeve under the deck and another thing that was mounted on the inner hull -- not sure what it was for, but had to chisel it off.

Hopefully, I can get the holes mostly done today, and start fairing. Fairing is where you mix up a batch of epoxy resin and a low density filler that's easy to sand. You try to get it to the consistency of mayonnaise and spread it over the area with a putty knife. It's sorta like doing dry wall work, and it's really an art to do it well. Doing it well means that you normally only need to do it once and don't need to sand much. I usually need at least two coats and sand a great deal. But I end up with an invisible patch, but it can take a lot of work.

I'm better at it now. The first time I did it was on the large area of deck in the bow. It had similar leaks -- the boat was probably pretty wet inside all the time -- and the previous owner had added a vent up there as well, but didn't seal it either. That caused major damage to the core, and I ended up having to remove 14 square feet of deck and replace almost that much of the core. I had to do the same thing under the mast step on the coach roof, but that was a much smaller area. It took a pretty long time to do, but I learned a lot during the process. It also ate up too much time and money and was a major reason I was forced to winter in Marion and go back to work early.

But it sure looks good and will look great once I paint it. Hopefully, that'll be in the next week or two.