Perhaps I would not have had time to glass the bilge panels yesterday even if I wasn’t hobbling around as it took me 3 hours to complete the job today but then I was also hobbling around today, but it didn’t seem like it was slowing me down all that much today. I have to first prepare the panels by removing the excess of the tabs that I left when releasing them from the sheets with the jigsaw. In retrospect I was being far too cautious when cutting them out fearing cutting too far into the panel thinking that being anything less than perfectly cut would be bad when in reality it doesn’t matter at all how poorly cut they are because the panels are often 5mm apart on the hull anyway and the gaps filled with glue or filler. Removing the tabs so that the panel is perfectly straight is preferable but not critical and you can save yourself the effort of using the rasp (time consuming and itchy work) by cutting them as close as you can with the jigsaw and don’t worry about cutting away too much, it is better than not enough.

After doing the rasp work, I removed the peel ply from the inside of the panels and recycled the pieces I would use over the glass. I then marked the panels where the glass would go. I then cut the glass to size. I mixed up some resin (and hardener) and painted the panel where the first glass would go and layed the glass over it and moved on to the next one to paint the area while giving the resin on the first one time to soak up into the glass. I then return to the first glass and paint on more resin directly onto the glass to complete the wet out (removing any dry spots), I then squeegee out any excess and attach the peel ply. I then move on to the next one and complete it in the same way, until all 10 glass sections (2 panels, 5 bulkheads needing glass reinforcement) are attached.

No photos today as I forgot the camera. Tomorrow I should be able to lift one of the panels up into place using the ratchet straps and perhaps even get it glued down.