I have now sanded all of the filler filled joins except for some unfilled holes here and there, and attempted to sand the join down the middle of the keel. This was a little harder to do because most of the fill was Duflex and glue filler which is much harder stuff than the filler and therefore much harder to sand smooth. I am getting a better sander so I will do the keel and also some more spot filling and then sanding back once that sets. So I am almost ready to start glassing. I was a couple of days (so that means about 6 hours) ahead of my schedule but as my goal was to be entirely ready to glass I guess I am now a little (maybe 3 hours) behind schedule. No big deal.
The turn around is more due to last minute pre trip stuff that needed to be done for work rather than the boat taking longer although I did mess around a while trying to rig a dust extractor which turned out to be a really effective dust spreader. We have one of those bagless wet and dry Shopvacs that we thought would be ideal, but we must be using it wrong because the dust goes up the hose, through the filter and comes out at speed through the out vents on the machine and fill the air whereas without it, some dust goes up but the bulk of it falls down to the floor below the area I am sanding. So it’s back to the drawing board on that one! I had to put tarps over the stock, and the dust having been “filtered” is very fine and walls and doors are no impediment to it and there is a fine film of dust all over the place. I will have to spend some time cleaning up the place on my return before I will start anything else on the boat by order of the management (Jo!).
For those that don’t know, this will be the last post for a while (3 weeks) as I have to go on a business trip. So the logs should start again in March.
