Glassing or taping is a very satisfying job. It is relatively easy, (except for long upside down taping) but the reason it is satisfying is psychological. Taping sets hard and seals joins and has a feeling of permanence about it. Once done there is no going back, so once something is glassed in and it sets it is in for good and mentally you start to move on from it. So it was this feeling I had as I glassed and then bogged the foredeck to underwing and foredeck to sidedeck joins and the catwalk to foredeck joins. It is now all in, done, move on. Well not quite, there is still the inside joins to be coved and taped but I wont get to most of them until after the foredeck is faired and then the hatch tops cut out so that I can get inside again. I can get to the joins in the inside of each hull and will do that soon, there is still some trimming to do inside where the foredeck and sidedeck planking meet before I can tape in there and my knee is still a bit too tender to be climbing into those spaces.

I didn’t have a big enough router bit to round the front edge. I made a small impression in it with the largest bit I had but in the end I wasn’t happy with it so I got the flat sander and just rounded it a bit more. Once it was rounded I gave the coves a sand to smooth them and I was ready to glass. I was a bit concerned with coving yesterday and not glassing wet on wet but I am glad I did them this way, they were still a little green which meant that the sandpaper clogged a little but I got them sanded smooth and then glassing was a breeze. Under the catwalk the cove was still quite soft, softer than the rest which surprised me a little, I did it last but only 15 minutes after the previous coving. Anyway because it was softer (rubbery) I just coved over it with a larger radius coving tool and glassed on that cove wet on wet. No problem.

I had lunch to give the tapes a chance to set a little so they would not move as I applied bog. Then I bogged all of the tapes out to the bog layer that was already applied to the various panels. Once set it can all be faired and back filled. This is a job I will do a section at a time to make it seem less of a chore. Next month I will move onto the cabin roof construction but tomorrow to finish out the month I will glue the bedroom walls in.