DONE!

Fitted the Fore and aft decks, seats and mooring eyes tonight. A few little cleaning up jobs to do. But as good as finished and ready for her maiden voyage on Friday.

>:>D

Seats

Seats. Woven by my own fair hand. Oops! made a mistake in the weave of the one in the foreground. The Pegosaurus is also now bright red! (I'm not happy with the finish though and having thoughts of sanding it all off and starting again in the winter)

Paint-Mare!

Started painting on friday with the "high performance exterior primer" from International, it contains alumnium flakes and is supposed to protect the wood very well. However, yesterday morning I found that it does not stick to epoxy, as the undercoat started fetching it off the fillets at the seams as I brushed it on. Quick check with a white spirit soaked rag and found that took it off as well. Lots of swearing ensued. I then spent the remainder of saturday sanding, wiping down with cloths and scrubbing the paint off with pan scrubs soaked in white spirit. The alumnium flakes got everywhere and stained the underside of the outwales and afterwards the boat looked a right mess. I was not happy.

I decided that because the varnish was sticking well I primed the outside of the boat with varnish and then painted two coats of undercoat on top. This appears to have worked so far. Wanted to start glossing tonight but because of the temperature drop this evening the under coat was still tacky. So it's another early start to do it in the morning.

After all this, sea trials have been delayed until wednesday. Just one day prior to the Scotland trip. Here's hoping there will be no more setbacks!

Outwales, runners, seats and stuff

Text later. Be happy with the few thousand words printed above.

Another 6 am start this morning.....

Finished off the inwales last night and fitted the centre spreader. This morning I faired in the filleting/chines where the finish was a bit lumpy after the first sanding. It may just be achievable to launch her by next weekend!!

Filling, sanding and gunwales

Filleted and did a basic fairing job on the outside chines. Not perfect and rather messy, which meant I had to do a load more sanding than I would have wanted to. Will need to do another layer of fairing as there are a few small cavities and areas which aren't as smooth as I'd like.

Fitted the upper inwale, the balcotan adhesive is fantastic. So quick to bond (20 minutes and you can take the clamps off!) and seems very strong - I haven't had to use any screws or nails. I scarf jointed the inwales at the midpoint as it was a bit difficult to bend them through the complete curve, and I didn't have enough clamps to hold the full length in place.

Taping all done

Hurrah! At last completed the internal taping. I've decided to not tape the outside of the hull, at present it appears quite stiff, Selway Fisher say it's not required, and as the intended use isn't charging down rapids, I can't see that it's necessary. It will give a much cleaner look to the hull.

Next job is filleting the outside seams and filling the stitch holes and gaps between the tacking fillets. And also filling the imperfections between the panels. I hope this doesn't take too long!

Really should get some more pictures on here... Tomorrow!

More taping

Filleted and taped one end comaprtment tonight. That took 2 hours. Came in exhausted. I hoped to get both end compartments done tonight. I can see my deadline slipping away!

Best to get it right than rush it though...