Felix,
The plastic staples used on the deck strips worked out better that I had
expected. A Stanley Tool pull saw worked well to cut the staples between the
stations and the hull with minimal saw marks on the cedar. More damage was
done to my knuckles by the glue drips. The saw marks were easily removed
during
the sanding. The poly staples do a great job of holding the strips to the
forms while glassing and sanding. The key factor in the sanding outcome is
keeping the sand paper sharp and use as little pressure as possible. Get the
excess glue off with a sure-form or dual-blade paint scraper before it clogs
up the paper. Buy top quality sand paper, as the good stuff clogs less and
lasts longer. I use an orbital with vacuum attachment for the big areas when
sanding with the 220 and above disks. This keeps the dust down and keeps the
clogging to a minimum. Wet sanding to 2000 gives you a mirror like finish.
That's my two cents on making sanding dust.
Bill Scheumann
USA020 and USA040
In a message dated 1/7/06 7:54:53 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
f.schliebitz@xxxxxx writes:
Gee, again.
What an awesome looking shape that is. I guess this is one of the few boats
that Iâve seen that look just as beautiful when itâs upside down. Good
thing
the boat can be tipped over while sailing â whenever you get sick of the
complexity of your deck layout :o).
I agree with Mark and Bram. Unless you are vacuum-bagging the glass onto
your hull there is no reason to get crazy before you glass and graphite/epoxy
the bottom of the hull. No big gains to be made at this stage.
Itâs also a good idea to wait until youâve glassed the inside. I know
whoever is going to use those plastic staples is going to hate me when he is
trying to get the boat of the moulds, but â the strips wonât flex as much
either,
while you are fairing and glassing. But donât take this decision lightly.
You might end up with a few terrible tool marks on the inside and some of your
moulds might truly suffer, if you donât use the right tools and donât
spend
two cents on two extra bags of patience for that day.
Another way to prevent your hull from flexing too much is using as little
pressure as possible while you are sanding and change your sandpaper more
frequently. I know this is almost impossible when you are trying to sand the
graphite/epoxy. You need to use some pressure to get the sandpaper to work at
all.
I know itâs tempting to get the bottom all perfect before you continue onto
another project like the inside and deck, butâ you should wait until
youâve
married the deck and the hull together. Things might settle and twist a bit
while you do that. I guess Bill could sing a song or two about that. I think
Tom and I started on fairing the bottom, but stopped when we considered that
we will make the awful experience of a lot of little things changing while the
deck is put on. Good thing we donât have to cotton-caulk the seams or deck
on this design â thanks Bram :o).
Have fun.
Felix :o)
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