After the trouble I had last weekend keeping the coves neat when I glassed them I discussed the problem with a couple of other builders and one of them told me the obvious which hadn’t occurred to me. What is meant by wet on wet really means wet on green. The cove is a epoxy based mixture just like the resin (it simply has a filling powder added). Randal advised me to wait until the cove was well set but within the “green” time before glassing. Epoxy has a green time of around 12 hours in which time you still get a chemical bond, which means you don’t need to key (sand) the cove to get a good bond.

So I tried this today. And whilst the result was a lot better, it was still a very frustrating process because I must have made the mix a little too runny because I couldn’t stop it from sagging down the join ending up very thin (and no longer the shape of the cove I layed down) at the top and thick at the bottom. I had to continually re shape the cove until it was almost set and even then I don’t think I ended up with as smooth and neat shaped cove as I could end up with.

One suggestion I also received was to add some chopped glass into the cove mix as this would aid in holding the cove shape together. I hadn’t tried this today but plan to upon my return.

So only 3 hours work on the boat today and just one side of a bulkhead coved. Another slack day where I managed to avoid fairing and any day that doesn’t involve fairing is a good day!

Tomorrow we head off (driving) to the Gold Coast for a week off. Of course next weekend is the Sanctuary Cove boat show so a very important part of the boat building process. You could learn something that could change the direction or the way you build the boat, or find a bargain or a new product that helps in the process. So the next entry to this page will be a show report more than anything else.