Back on track...

It feels good to be back to work on our SB18 project. This past weekend we got the bare outer hull coated with epoxy and glassed the bottom. Since the hull had been setting for a week or more with nothing going on we first sanded and wiped everything down for the epoxy and then were able to keep a fairly steady pace to work wet on wet for the rest of the process. We first laid out the fiberglass cloth rolled it back up and then applied the 2 coats of epoxy. After an initial cure we laid the starboard side fiberglass back in place and wet it out. It took about 45 minutes to get all the epoxy on using a 9” adhesive roller. Then we began going over the entire surface with the squeegee and the 6” resin roller working the air out and smoothing the fiberglass. This is one of those nerve-racking events during the project because you only have so long to work the epoxy before it goes into the curing or gel stage and is no longer workable. The surface must be well coated but not to heavily. You need to use just enough epoxy to turn the fiberglass transparent and adhere it to the core. White areas indicate either epoxy-starved areas or air under the fiberglass. I took a look back later that night and found a few areas I wish were a little better. They look kind of puckered where the fiberglass separated from the core. These will need attention to correct.

When we did the port side I had in my mind that we had used 90 oz of resin on the starboard side. As we approached that same weight on the port side I began to get concerned because it looked like we had a lot of dry areas to cover. Not wanting to cover the fiberglass with to much epoxy (known as a resin rich lay-up) I reluctantly had Stephanie mix up a little more. We got it all looking good and whatever it took was now irrelevant. I looked at the totals on the starboard side afterward and saw we had used 116 oz. We used a total of 114 oz on the port side.


An interesting note here, I read the building notes just as my fellow builder Marcelo (see http://forums.bateau2.com/viewtopic.php?t=17039 or his blog at http://sb18coral.zip.net/ ) did and applied 2 coats of epoxy to the entire outer hull. Evan Gatehouse, one of the co-designers of the SB 18 at Bateau, posted on Marcelo’s thread that the notes should call for 1 coat on entire hull and 2 coats on panels that will not receive any fiberglass. I had rather error on the side of to much than not enough within reason so I’ll just look at it as lost time and not resin waste. You may have seen another post of mine on the subject of glass weight. I was unable to get the 12 oz biaxial cloth locally called out in the scantlings but was able to get 17 oz. After Evan gave the go ahead that’s what we used in order to save another week waiting for material. I calculated the difference of the cloths weight to be about 4 lbs so not a big issue. I will use the 12 oz on the interior of the boat.

For the record books we used a total of 230 oz by weight of epoxy or 14.3 lbs or about 1.8 gallons. I think we were a little resin rich though and could have cut back just a bit. I hope Marcelo kept track of his epoxy use so I’ll know the full weight cost of the 17 oz fabric. In the future I vow to order materials ahead of schedule so that I don’t substitute for convince. Plus the fact that the Boatbuilders Central prices are hard to beat even after paying the shipping with gas prices so high.



Time:
Prep boat for fiberglass 1 hour 30 min
2 x Epoxy pre-coats 30min each 1 hour total
2 x Lay out and wet fiberglass 1 hour each 2 hours total
Total this segment 3 hours 30 min

This week I will bring the boatlift (read 4x4 post and some bolts) around to the front of the garage and roll the hull out to flip her over. It will be nice to see her upright. Until then…

Total Project Hours To Date: 62