Final filling and fairing, etc. Day-3

Whatever happened to Day-2? It disappeared in a cloud of epoxy dust. There was sanding from early morning until late afternoon. Time sped by in a blur. Excess fairing material was attacked with deadly purpose.

Powerful ideas may come to mind while one is doing such work. Mindless sanding, sweat and grit can produce great thoughts. For example:

• The bigger hammer idea: Would this go faster with a bigger, stronger tool?

• The end is in sight on this side pledge: I won’t make this mistake on the other side. 

• Why is this pitifully undersized sander flinging chunks of white stuff in my workspace? (Empty the dust collector, dummy).
• This dust mask must make be look like a chipmunk.

• Plaintive wishes: Will the paint cover that? And that? And that? And that? And that …?

• The bigger hammer justification: At my age, just about any new tool I buy will last a lifetime. What a bargain!

• The comforting reflection: When this thing is painted and on the boat, nobody but me will see it up close.

So here we are at Day-3 in the Final Fairing Marathon and here is a picture of me looking like a chipmunk:



Note the wimpy little random orbit sanding machine. I did not yield to the Bigger Hammer temptation.


After about four more hours of sanding today and a lot of dusting and wiping everything down with tack cloths, it was back to mixing and rolling un-thickened epoxy.


Things are speeding up now. I am still mixing epoxy in 6-ounce batches. During the rolling,  I stop often to chase bubbles with a disposable brush.


Having declared the port side of the top fully faired, the coat rolled on that side became its first moisture barrier coat. The third barrier coat will be the last of the epoxy rolling before painting begins.


The epoxy rolled on the starboard side today became that side's first pre-fairing coat. Both sides will get second coats this evening, after the epoxy has reached "green" stage. Right now, the top looks like this:

I plan to roll again in the morning. That would be the port (faired) side's final moisture barrier coat, and the last coat on the starboard side before fairing starts there.


Fairing the final side should be easier because there are fewer epoxy lumps and thick spots under the fabric. This is probably because we made a lot of mistakes laying down fabric and epoxy where we began last month, on the port side. By the time we got to the starboard side we had figured out how to do it and the result is a much smoother surface.

In the final fairing home stretch, I expect to be using less fairing material, mixed to a thinner consistency and, mercifully, sanding a lot less.

Some technical details

For initial sanding of the fairing material, I used a 3M drywall hand sander I found at the home store. I used 60-grit paper in this hand sander because that was the coarsest grade I could find. I would have liked to have had 30 grit, such as used in big power sanders for floor finishing.

My palm sander is a 4-inch DeWalt Mod. D-26450, single speed random orbit with dust collector. A 7-inch random orbit sander with variable speed and dust collector would have been ideal for this job.

I used 80-grit sandpaper in the DeWalt for final sanding.

Questions? Suggestions? Advice?

If you have ideas on how I can do a better job of this, or if I can provide additional information, please let me know. You can use the comments box below.