Magic #16: The Third Dimension

My decks - not to scale

Or at least the third layer on the foredeck. Despite my sander troubles (the repair shop found another part broken and part is on order), I managed to get the entire foredeck sanded, pre-faired, and glassed up over the weekend. Overall the whole process went pretty smooth but I did find 2 small (quarter sized) areas that were resin starved. A little disappointing, but not a big deal. I'll have to grind those out and refill before I move on (I can't go any further until the sander is fixed anyway). Not perfect, but a whole lot better than the peat moss decks that I used to own.

I broke the job up into 3 sections: the bow, port foredeck, and starboard foredeck. I could have done the whole thing at once, but it was fairly warm in the shed (high 80's) and I didn't need any big batches of epoxy kicking before I had time to spread everything out. Also, I have just about enough sandbags to cover each of the areas (not all at once).

The process generally followed:
1. Pre-fairing each section and letting it cure.
2. Sanding pre-faired section.
3. Cut glass to shape so it lays flat over all the flanges and right up to where the bulwark starts to curve upward toward the toerail.
4. Mix 24 oz epoxy and coat pre-faired section and lay glass on with some of mix.
5. Saturate glass with remaining mix and make sure the everything is laying flat.
6. Cover in plastic, and lay sandbags over layup.
7. Wait.

Below are some photos of the progress. Unfortunately, I'll be idle until the sander gets fixed, but should be able to crank out the sidedecks pretty quickly after that. Once I get the third layer on the rest of the decks, I get to go back and start the real fairing process.