South Deck, Glassed and Trimmed
It’s been an eventful week. Besides the big storm and flood, boat building and Independence Day celebrations, the dogs cornered a groundhog that drew blood before we could separate them, and one night cornered a skunk, which ended just as you’d expect. Emily did the requisite tomato juice bath at 2 in the morning. At least the basement is mostly dry after a week of running fans, which now are doing double duty dissipating the stink.
Little Buddy smells like skunk
Our little town really does it up for July 4th: a parade, live music all day, cookouts and floating on the river, followed by the best fireworks show in 100 miles. With the long holiday weekend, a lot got done on the boats. It was another glassing marathon that started on Friday, with the last flow coat going on in time for the parade Saturday morning. Sneaking in a nap let me enjoy the rest of the day while the epoxy cured. We even got the old Sharpie skiff out for a trip up the river, passing a floating party on a batteau and an armada of sunburned, inebriated tubers.
South Deck Draped
Thin painter’s plastic protects the hulls from drips.
Terri braved the fumes and took some nice pictures of the second coat in progress.
Tipping out and filling the weave
Fill Coat, before a pass with a squeegee to remove runs and bubbles.
The Cypress looks good under glass. The extra time sanding and smoothing gives a nice even finish, which also nicely reveals a few small gaps in some of the miter joints. Otherwise, they turned out rather well, with some knots and grain wiggles left in for interest.
The cabinet scrapers again come in handy for removing hickies and bugs, and shaving down the overlap seam of fiberglass cloth before the final flow coat. The seam is completely invisible with no sanding needed.
There’s no reason to think so, but with the topsides glassed it feels like I’ve turned the corner and passed the halfway mark. By the time the fireworks started it felt like another reason to celebrate. With this part done, work moves from the outside to the inside, and we start all over again.
melonseed skiff, mellonseed skiff, melon seed, mellon seed