AWOL

Ok, so maybe I disappeared for a while, but I'm back on the job again.  I pretty much squandered the winter doing nothing but I was burned out from my previous efforts and needed a bit of a break.  I feel a little guilty about it, but this is a long term project and I'm not going to kill myself getting it done.

With that said, I did about 1.5 hours of work sanding the foredeck to see how fair it is.  I'm happy to report that it looks pretty darn good. Not perfect, there are a bunch of spot fills I'll have to do before I'm really ready for paint, but given that the vast majority of the deck will be under Kiwigrip (which will hide many a sin), I'm not too worried and can live with a few imperfections.   I decided that I would spread a quick coat of primer right at the bow to see how it looks and I'm very pleased.  Of course, I slapped the primer on in just a few minutes with a brush and will have to sand it off before I get the real primer on, but it was really satisfying to get a glimpse of the finished project.

Those are brush marks not fiberglass scatches.

Without a uniform color, it is hard to tell if it is fair.

The biggest problem I'm finding as I sand my way aft (6" Rigid Random Orbit) is along the bulwark/deck junction.  I'll have to go along the whole edge on both sides and do a small radius filet from bow to stern.  Then I'll have to fair that in, so it's a bit of work.

I'm putting the toerail project on the back burner for the time being while I re-assess my method.  I was going to do 3 - 1.25 inch strips laminated together and bent on a jig, but some helpful advice on the plastic classic forum has me rethinking the project.  Stay tuned!