Day 27: Fairing in Passenger Areas, Spare Oar Slot

Today was a big sanding day.  All the fairing compound from the passengers areas were done with the orbital sander.  The vacum attachment is priceless.  I wear a dust mask but its just out of habit.  There is hardly any dust in the air at all.

I left the tops of all the seats bare.  (no fairing) I figure I'm gonna put down non-skid compound on there so why double up.

In this photo you can see the wood grain.  I never noticed until now how much the epoxy picks up the grain.

To break up the sanding job, I cut out the spare oar slot.  (I had forgotten all about it)  I had the front seatback already filleted...bummer.  Took a while to chisel out the fillet.  Definitely a backwards move.  Especially since I was worried about the seat back not fitting perfectly.  Now I realize it was never a problem as I had to cut out a big portion of it.  A learning moment for next time around!

The spare oars(s) slot was cut from the passenger seatback and the thwart which separates the side and front cross hatch.

Port side.

I also cut the deck piece for the oar slot.  Took lots of fine tuning to get it fit to the curve of the hull.  I then realized I probably should have used 1/4" instead of 3/8".  The slot takes on a bit of an arc which is tough to bend the 3/8" along.  I may just cut a 1/4" piece tomorrow.

The epoxy dispenser failed today so I didn't glass the deck piece.  All the more reason to switch to 1/4".

Not sure what is going on with the epoxy dispenser.  I took it almost completely apart and still no luck.  Might have to call in the experts...

The other thing that went wrong today was this... They were scissors.  I put them in the bucket of acetone to clean the epoxy off of them.  When I went to fish them out all I could find was black ooze.  The plastic handle apparently dissolved and now inhabits the bottom of the acetone bucket making it hard to use.  The scissors are also useless.

Seems like a backwards day....

Until!!

My landlord and friend Doug showed up to help me refill the propane tank and set me up with 2 giant dungeness crabs and the most beautiful smelling japanese camelias!

Definitely made my day.

Kleo the cat was pretty stoked on the crab as well!