Masking and filleting the outside of the hull.

Long Steps is coming along.

Progress, a little at a time but progress nevertheless.  With the hull and most of the internal structure all sorted, its getting down to smaller pieces and the small but time consuming jobs.  Todays was to grind the edges of the chine tapes down a bit, ready for me to run a fillet of filler along the edges and smooth things off ready for the fiberglassing of the boats bottom.

The other job today was to fill and fair the undersides of the top two lap joints, the lowest one will have that done after the fiberglassing of the bottom.

Once that’s done then the skeg and the little protective guard alongside the “offcentreboard slot” can go on, then its filleting and finishing the hulls outside, up to the gunwale, ready for paint.

I’ve taken to masking the fillet lines. It takes a few minutes to get the tape on but makes for a much tidier job.  Microballoons with a little bit of glue powder mixed in does the job, fills any little gaps and will protect the edges of the plywood planks.  I’ve run a gloved finger with methylated spirits ( denatured alcohol) along to smooth it, that reduces the work required to smooth it.

 Taping the bottom chines, these get more wear and tear than other parts of the boat, still have one more layer to go, that being a full sheet of 6oz cloth from the lowest chine across the bottom to the same place on the other side.  The other chines / lap joints are masked off ready for the protective fillet of epoxy and microballoon fillets to be run along them.

It pays to strip the masking tape before the goo has had time to set off hard, I've not done the lowest ( highest as you look at the pic) one as the glass thats going over the boats bottom will come down to that lap, be trimmed off there and only then, will the fillet go along, the intention being to hide the edge of the glass under that.

Painting is not that far away. I’m looking forward to that. Five coats. One of primer, lightly sanded to get brush marks out, then two of high build undercoat, this wet sanded with 180 grit, then two of top coat. 

I’ve decided on rescue orange bottom, black boot top line, and pale green topsides with a hunting green or British racing green topsides strake.  Then very pale green decks and cabin sides, same inside the boat, and a rescue orange cabin top.  Yes, I want to be easily found if need be, I’m hoping to take this boat a long way from her home port.

In between doing things with sticky stuff on Long Steps, I’m making recovery guide wheels for Spooks trailer, at present there is nothing to hold her straight as she comes up the trailer,  so some mods there, and a chest of drawers to replace the MDF chest that fell apart, that’s my pantry in the big ship. I’m getting ticked off with not having somewhere to store provisions so it was beyond time I did something about it.  Two sheets of 12mm construction ply, lots of screws and a big bottle of glue have gone into it so far, nearly done.

 Indy thinks that all work and no play makes both of us dull people. "Well, throw it then".