Day 3 - Partial fairing of the hull and assembling the keel halves

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Day 3:

First up, flipping the hull back over and inspecting the results of attaching the deck. Go ahead and remove all tape and pins:



I was able to stick my phone inside the hull and take some photos of the inside to inspect the resulting fillet. It was not perfect but it created a seal all the way around. Again, using the trowel would have resulted in a more uniform bead:





Of course, the transom still has the same defect, but I will be able to fill this in easily with epoxy and I am certain the result will be satisfactory:


That was not the only failure on my part. There are a few spots where the deck were slightly above the hull sides. This is a result of the pins not being exactly the right distance from the edge (⅛ inch). Be more careful than I was. I will fill in these gaps or differences with epoxy during fairing of the hull. With a little sanding, should be no problem. This whole process is very forgiving. The deck at the point where it meets the bow was not set even. There were several contributing factors, I think. First, I should have used more weight. I should have been more careful during taping. Finally, in order to help the epoxy settle into position when gravity was responsible for having the fillet forming, I had tapped on the hull all around to shake things up a bit and get the epoxy moving - this may have resulted in a slight shifting of the deck:




Using my belt sander, I sanding the front of the bow flat:




I then used 100 grit sandpaper, sanding along the grain, to smooth things out. I rounded things off just a bit on the bottom edge:



To accommodate the filling I would have to do with the epoxy along the mismatched deck edges, I only sanded flat and avoided rounding things off:




My wife has been providing a helping hand, measuring and mixing the epoxy and making sure I don't miss any steps in the instructions. Very helpful:



Here, I am inspecting the front of the bow for flatness to make sure I have a good surface for attaching the bow piece:



Test fitting the bow piece... I needed to be sure that the bottom is flush with the bottom of the hull and on the flip side I wanted to be sure the bow piece will be flush with my slightly raised deck. This way I can fill in all gaps and ultimately sand things nicely. In my case, I am not following the instructions for putting on the mahogany deck strips or the bow plate as I plan to do a custom raised rail and because my deck was a bit off. All will be clear in upcoming steps:




Next, I clear coated the bow front and along areas where I would be fairing the hull with epoxy to fill in my gaps. I decided to fair the bottom of the hull at the same time I am attaching the bow piece and will do the deck side in a later step:





I also prepared the transom with clear coat to accept the patching of my gap on the back:



Applied some clear coat to the part of the bow piece that will contact the bow sides:




Then I put the bow piece on with the pre-thickened/phenolic epoxy mixture and filled things in a bit to give me some flexibility when it comes to sanding:



All of this will be sanded. Concentrate on filling all the gaps and not on neatness:



The next couple of shots show the edge where I have been filling in with epoxy. This time, I used the trowel (painter's palette knife) and it worked great:





Next up, gluing the keel halves together. Started by making my clamp blocks and wrapping them with stretch wrap (saran wrap):




I forgot to take shots of the gluing steps. First, I ran the bolts through the ballast holes to insure they were well aligned. Then I used push pins, as instructed, pushing through one side to the other near the top edge and area where the ballast goes. Then I pulled my bolts out, then the pins, to be reinserted after gluing. Next, clear coat the inside surfaces (hopefully marked with an X from day 1). Then, apply a runny mixture of the pre-thickens/phenolic epoxy. Apply the blocks and clamps. Here, we are removing excess epoxy from the bolt holes so they remain open:



Here is the whole rig:



As the epoxy oozes from the clamping pressure, continue to make sure the bolt holes remain clear. More photos of same follow. Also check and make sure the edges are aligned. I spread a bit of the oozing epoxy around the edges to fill any small gaps or imperfections in the edge of the keel pieces. Probably not necessary due to the sanding that will follow, but no harm either:








Leave to dry overnight.

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