Cored!

Yay! It's all in.

I finally finished laying in ALL the core today.  I'll have to go back and look, but I think I used 16 2x4 sheets (I have 2 sheets left).  I know I'm a long way from done (at my rate it will be years), but getting the core in was a big step. The bad news is that I won't be able to do any more work on the boat for about 2 weeks because we are going to Bar Harbor for vacation. The good news is that we are bringing my 17' O'day Daysailer with brand new sails and have rented a mooring for a week at the head of Somes Sound. The Daysailer is a really fun boat that will get up on a plane with a little wind and really bomb around. I'm looking forward to it.

Anyway, I had run out of the 7.5 gallon batch of System 3 epoxy I bought last April with the starboard and stern core layups. I decided to go with Progressive Epoxy for my next order mainly because Merton's Marine is about 2.5 hours away and my truck doesn't exactly sip fuel. I don't like switching product brands mid stream, but the reviews on Progressive Epoxy are favorable, it uses the same 2:1 ratio, and the price is a bit lower than what I could get System 3 for. Add in the fuel costs to go to Merton's and I saved quite a bit (Progressive distributor is 20 minutes from my house).

I'm a bit sad to see all the core in because now that I have done the vast majority of the boat, I am getting pretty good at getting it layed in and making sure there are no voids along the sides and under the beveled edges with thickened epoxy. I'm also getting much quicker at it now that my technique is better and I am using tools better suited to the task. I found a really cool flexible plastic trowel-ly thing at Home Depot that I am really loving. It has roughly a 10 inch flexible edge and comfortable grip and on the perpendicular side it has a 5 inch edge. It works great for this and I expect it will be very good for wetting out the biaxial glass once I lay that down. For the whole port side, I used 132 ounces of mixed epoxy bringing my total to about 8.5 gallons used.  The Progressive epoxy seems good so far, much clearer than System 3 and has a good pot life (medium hardener).  One note: not bad, but different is the hardener for System 3 is more viscous than the resin.  The reverse is true for Progressive.  Once the resin and hardener are mixed however I couldn't tell any difference in viscosity from System 3 to Progressive.  I guess I can't give a solid review of the product until I report back in 5 years that everything on the port side held up, but so far so good.

My new bestest buddies.