Monday, August 20, 2007

Float keel and outer hull fairing


So here we are, my two float hulls side by side and my flexible long board. I'm just getting started on the keel shaping and the foam smoothing. There is lots of work ahead but the potential of these two shapely structures is quite encouraging. I can comment already on the following

  • I am very impressed with my first application of the Aeropoxy light filler. When fully cured it really does not seem to be that much heavier than the foam itself. The manufacturer states it is only 4 lbs/gallon of filler. It is also very sandable. I will not hesitate to use it on all the areas where filling is required. By the way I have lots of these 'areas'. It looks like I did a crappy job on the vertical foam strips at the keel join. Much of the my keel centre join line is slightly depressed which I can now relate to my attempt to make the foam strips fit perfectly. I thought that I could sand down this centre depression but I have changed my mind and am in the process of a small centre buildup. I also have the low spots that other builders have noted close to the forward bow bulkhead.
  • I have already commented that my foam turned green from the Divinycell blue when stored outside under the tarp. I suspect it is a thermal effect (there were some high temperatures at times out there) but I'm also wondering if it could be algae. Get out the microscope. Anyway, on the three halves that were stored outside I do not have to spray any colourant ink on the foam to help identify the low spots. ie a low spot will remain greenish brown, high spots will sand down to the blue. You can see some of this in the picture above.

3 comments:

Tor Rabe said...

I had the same experience when sanding down the outside of the floats. But I don't think my Divinycell had changed colour as much as yours.

Tor,
"Glassing" floats

GK said...

Hi Tor,
I am just catching up on all the material on your site as well as those other building maniacs, Jay's and Ed's sites. I was stuck in a rut for a while there making float half after float half. I'll add a link to your site.

Did you store your floats outside?

Tor Rabe said...

No. My floats were stored inside.