This is the last layer under the painting. But I don’t paint before finishing the upside part of hull and deck, so the next step is: turning the hull.

Putting on the second layer of UV stable Epoxy was relatively easy, but after each layer I need to sand the surface. Sanding is a very hard work, but the surface is getting nicer and nicer after every hour of fairing. Some pictures: during sanding process…

After covering the glass cloth onto the hull surface I had to repaire the air bubbles that were arisen. First I had to drill a small hole directly into all bubbles one after another, than I had to fill the holes with high density epoxy glue. After that all epoxy humps had to be sanded. In addition to I had to fill with epoxy the thin gaps between the glass cloth pieces where they didn’t fit perfectly. (You can not cover the surface with parallel stripes of clothes, because the hull bent into ortogonal – that means to 3 directions of the space. Better, if you leave gaps between the glass cloth stripes than if they laid on each other.) After all the whole hull must have been sanded again. It was a huge mission took a lot of time and energy.

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Sanding becomes more serious…

Sanding after 2nd coating

Looking aft (I started fairing from the bow section)

Hull will be stronger after coating new epoxy layer

Operation

The first layer had to be sanded almost to the wood surface to equalize the scragginess.

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Now, I can realize that actually sanding is the hardest job during the whole construction. You must admit that the more time you spend sanding the hull perfectly the better result you are going to get. Dudley Dix – the designer – wrote that if you work hard enough in this and the previous periods, you can get as good quality surface as the GRP hulls, but in my opinion if you are working that hard, you CAN reach MUCH MORE BETTER quality and smooth surface even after the first sanding.
This spring I attended on a boat exhibition in Tulln (Austria) as a visitor, and I must confess that most of the GRP boats exposed had worst surface quality than I expected. Furthermore – except the big yachts – hulls of the experimented boats were worse than my own build wooden boat’s in the present state.
So, I have no other things to do but put the next epoxy coats and the top coat(s) (UV resistant) on, and keep fairing until the surface will be perfect.

Some pictures after sanding the first epoxy coat:

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Sanding the hull is a never ending operation, because you can always find such part of the skin wich you need to sand more times. In addition to the hull hides some other non expected fault on the surface. Like when the two layers of the radius skin didn’t lay perfectly to each other and because of it didn’t adhere with the glue resin. Some pictures:

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laminating failure

correcting failure

Before putting the first coat of epoxy layer on the hull all of the spot holes and humps must be planned and sanded.

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