November 2022: Gluin' and Glassin'

After dry fitting de panels, we removed all of the panels from the hull. Taking the boat apart after closing the hull felt more like a step back rather than forward, but of course this was necessary in order to glue the panels. First, we applied two layers of epoxy on the inward facing side of the panels. After sanding and cleaning, we glued and screwed to panels back on. 

Next step was gluing the second bottom layer on top (or bottom actually) after which we beveled this layer. After we finished beveling the edged, we were quite glad that for now planing is done for a while…

We then mounted the butt blocks and sanded the hull. We rounded the sharp edges of the hull, so that applying the glass fiber without air trapping would be easier. Last step before we could start glassing the hull, was to mount the stem cap and shape the rounding of the bow. It was really nice to see the definitive hull shape after this step!

So, glassing the hull then! We both never worked with glass fiber before and for months we were wondering how we would pull this off. Once again, we followed a crash course on YouTube, after which we became quite confided that we could actually fix this job. We started with the reinforcements on the seams of the hull and covered these with peelply. The result looked pretty good! During the following days we put on the remaining reinforcements. By the time that we reinforced the (rounded) bow, we were quite handy shaping the glass. 

After the reinforcements were applied, we covered our marine plywood (okume) hull with two layers of 600gr/m2 glass fiber. We preferred to do this job in one go, so we planned a free Saturday with the thought to just see where we would end up for that day. Glassing the hull went much quicker and smoother than expected. So, Above expectations, we completed the job that Saturday afternoon. Pretty tired, but totally satisfied!   















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