So I finally made the decision to use epoxy rather than the left over polyester boat resin. I was just too nervous about the age of the resin, plus just the smell of it in the bottle put me off quite a bit. The final straw was when I was taking a look at my supplies for both the epoxy and the polyester, the measuring cups for the polyester had been contaminated with spilled hardener, so I knew I could not use them.

I cut the glass tape to length for all my inside seams and got started in the center section of the cockpit. It is a messy process, but I did the best I could with it. My hat goes off to all those who seem to be able to create such clean fillets and straight tape lines. This time around I believe my fillets efficiently used the epoxy.

The keel seam was not as fair as it could have been. I had cut the lines straight point to point rather than using a batten. The gap was close to 1/4 inch, and the thickened epoxy pushed the 2 month old duck tape on the outside. I had to keep smoothing the outside tape until the epoxy set up to keep the gap filled. The bottom will be so much fun to sand now!

No pictures, I can't find the charger to my camera. I will get some up on the next post.

I started this project because I had some material left over, some room in the garage and some time on my hands. It seemed like a quick build, something fun to play with which did not require a lot of cash or time. It has been decorating my garage for 2 months because I just started getting busy. Every time I'm driving somewhere I think about building it. When I get 2 or 3 hours at home, I find something else around the house to do.

So, in the intervening months, my garage floor had accumulated mess and the boat hull itself became a shelf. This mess has made it hard to think straight in the garage, much less contemplate my next step in the project. Last night I took some action. I cleaned up. Doesn't sound so ground breaking now, but 1/2 hour of straightening, tossing crap away and sweeping I actually have a garage floor again and can now take the next step of gluing the seams.

I would have done that last night, but my buddy Vince who lives down the road called up to see if I wanted to hang out. He and his wife have a young baby, so we don't get to hang all the time. I'm going to try to get some seams glued tonight, and take some new pics!

This picture is from April, now the seams are Duct Taped and ties are clipped. I have also added some bilge frames in the center of the boat to kep it from flattening.