Not sure I am catching up but I am making progress. Most of the hull sides including the inside bows under the tramps, and the D section have been bogged and sanded back, so next is a spot fill and another sand. The D sections needs a little more attention, I dont intend for it to be flawless but it needs more work than I have given it so far.
And the decks are now completely covered in bog and sand back has started, I would say I am about half done on that, so about another weeks sanding should do it. You can see the sanding is progressing by the highs showing through where I have sanded through enough to expose the highs, bog remaining in the lows. Again, I am not going to be as fussy because most of the decks will get non slip paint, but I am sanding just enough to have the minimum of bog left on. I have also started bogging and sanding the stern. I still have some work to do on the step risers and the rear of the cockpit seating.
Now that the stern panel (back of bath) is faired I can glue the U bolt in (it gets nuts and washers, the glue is to seal it in) and glass the step lids on, bog the tapes and fair the tapes out. Step tops wont need much sanding, cork will go on after paint, so again, just the tapes faired out.
The ply pads for the main winches are glassed in. Next is the sheet turn block, I am just waiting for some T nuts to be delivered before I glass them on. I will also be glassing down pads for self tacking jib tracks in front of where the masts will be stepped, pads for the halyard clutches each side and probable a pad for a single clutch for each sheet.
And then its on to the cockpit. I have already started on the cockpit seat tops. Again, they dont need much because they too will be covered in cork so its only the vertical surfaces that will need fairing, but I had a small mistake to repair first. Many years ago when I made the cockpit seating I made a bit of a mess of the leveling of the starboard side and as a consequence there was a dip at the back corner which if not repaired would have been a pooling point for water. So I decided to fill the gap and re-level it..
So I fixed the long standing mistake I made with the cockpit seats that was always slated to be fixed once the cockpit bogging started. I used some ply first to minimize the bog depth, as I did on the saloon roof and screeded the bog so as to re-level the area to the rest of the seat tops
Over the next few weeks I am also going to construct the last part not yet made, the dashboard and steering wheel riser.
The hardest of the fairing work is now pretty much done. Of course there is still a lot of sanding to go and some of it quite fiddly, but it gets physically easier from here. The highbuild, provided it is sanded soon after setting is easier to sand and the finer the sandpaper the easier it gets. On that point, a lesson I have learned and ought to pass on is that bog and highbuild take some months to fully cure, and once they do, they become infinitely harder to sand. The lesson therefore is, dont apply bog you dont intend to sand off again within a few days.
So I have a few more weeks of spot filling and re-sanding, re-coving and re-sanding etc. until I think I will be ready to apply the microsurfacer. It will be great to see the boat all one color for the first time. I am still to decide if I will apply it to the roof, as I am comfortable I have already faired this to a reasonable enough level. But the temptation to have the entire boat one color might be enough to re-fair the roof. We will see.
Its getting exiting n0w. I am even starting to have dreams about finishing. I know its still some months off, but I can really see the finish now.