Sunday morning found us back at Gypsy ready to get more done. Nina sanded the port settee to get rid of any epoxy residue and get it ready to tab the plywood to the hull. Then she made bondo fillets between the plywood and the hull so the fiberglass tape would lay down nicely across the joint. Epoxy fillets would have been stronger, but the bondo cures very fast and the joints will be plenty strong with three layers of glass tape and epoxy. We are using epoxy not only because it is strong, but also because it will cure better in cold weather.
Meanwhile, Bill went to work on making a template for the new hatch boards. We want to capture not only the shape but the angles involved. The template will be used to make full sized parts out of cheap wood so we can work any bugs out before we make them out of expensive plexiglass.
We now were ready to tab the port settee to the hull. Bill mixed epoxy and lent a hand and Nina glassed in the fiberglass tape and then covered it in peel ply to help get a smooth finish. Our epoxy is a couple of years old and the hardener turns red from the steel cans. It does not effect the epoxy it just makes it reddish brown.
Monday Bill sanded the settee and worked on fitting the dividers for the backrest. Nina was off knitting and got out of sanding.
In the afternoon while Bill worked on the dividers Nina worked on cleats for the refrigerator and pantry space. Once those are in place, we can make templates for the floors and bulkheads. We ran out of time and long enough screws and headed home for dinner.
After dinner, back we went. We had to label all the pieces so they would go back in the correct places and then we could disassemble the back rest dividers. The hull sides are still messy with old carpet residue and old contact cement and this meant more grinding for the areas that will be tabbed. Nina did not get out of this bit of grinding and had to person the vacuum while Bill had fun with the sander. One big mess later we were ready to glue the dividers in. More epoxy. Bill coated the rest of the plywood top on the port settee bottom with epoxy. It was a long weekend by the time we were done.
GypsyKramer 