Cockpit Time

Another busy weekend kept me away from much boat work, but I did manage to get a few things done.  I got another coat of primer on the cabin top and sides and the cockpit one step closer to primer.  I also started building the mast for the dinghy here.

I cleaned up the soft spot I had found on the bridge deck at the end of last week by pulling all the bad core out and sanding down the inner skin.  Next I ground a 2" bevel around the edges to tie the new with the old and epoxied in a new balsa core and the first of 5 layers of biaxial cloth.  The next day I glued in the remaining 4 layers to bring the new surface close to the level of the old.

5 layers is probably overkill, but the deck was thicker here and I decided that it would be easier to add additional cloth to fill the section up to the level of the old deck rather than use a ton of fairing compound to get the same result.  I finished it off by adding a much smaller amount of fairing compound to the section as well as filling all the leftover fastener holes throughout the cockpit.

Cleaned up and ready for new core.  Note the old core on the right hand side.  This was still in good shape so I left it in place rather than trying to rip it up.

5 layers of biaxial in place.  This left very minor low spots for fairing compound.

Fairing compound in place.  I'll probably need another touch up layer once I sand this one down.