Road to Painting

Sanding the world's largest small boat was no fun but it's done, and I'll leave it at that.  With that chore behind me (for now -- I know I have all the top layers still to do) I turned my attention to painting.  This was something I'd been looking forward to for a long time and was excited to get started, which translates to staring at the boat for long hours thinking about how to pull off this next major phase of the build.

 

The first thing I needed to do was to ensure the boat was still level after all that sanding, including hours of sitting on the hull.  Here's a leveler that shows pretty flat but not exactly flat.  Will this cause an issue?  I don't know.  I couldn't see where to fix it so I called it good and made myself aware of a possible correction later.

At least the transom seemed to be straight up and down and left and right.  (I purchased a laser leveler for $40 from a Big Online Company) as well as a tripod for it to sit upon.

Like many builders before, I used the leveler to trace a line in pencil around the boat.  This is where the line from the topsides crosses the chine into the bottom half of the hull.  Part art, part science, I decided to use the "lower line" here for painting.  You can see the faint red line from laser to the left of this photo.

I noticed that somehow the line I was tracing on the starboard hull was a little lower than the line I traced on the port side.  I think it's "heeling over" just a couple degrees so my line wasn't quite even?  Not sure.  It was straight, just maybe a half inch or so lower all across the hull.  That implies that the correction would be half the variance on one side negative and half on the other positive.

I decided to check this by hanging a ruler off the chine and marking the hull where the line would be and sure enough it was consistently lower.

 

So I marked off from the bow every foot or so and wrote down the distances for confirmation, then transferred those measurements to the other side and confirmed again with the laser.  I didn't bother with the "half here half there" math and just applied the full variance.

 

As precise as I wanted to be, the reality was anything within a quarter inch or so would be acceptable and anything better than that would be fantastic.  So writing "7/16" and "9/16" and then accurately transferring that to the hull was aspirational at best.

 

By eye, I laid down some frogtape for the curve at the transom.  I'm going to mirror PocketShip #1's design here by having a "boot strap" run around the waterline.  I used a sheet of paper to trace the curve of the tape, cut this out, and transposed and then transferred the curve to the other side for a match.  

 

 

 

I am glossing over this process a bit.  In reality, it took a couple days, a couple hours each time, and a lot of frog tape to finally satisfy my OCD.  Some builders simply painted to the corner and called it a day.  I don't know why I can't be some builders sometimes.  All I can do now is pray that I don't embarrass myself by having a wavy, uneven waterline. 

 

But before painting, I had to re-open the centerboard slot, a task I'd been avoiding.  Sitting on the hull, using some combination of box cutter, pliers, and the random orbital, this was a bit of a bear and caused quite the mess.  I briefly regretted putting so much 'glass here as I was cutting through it, but eventually appreciated that this is one strong boat.  There is a lot of angst over keel damage and many builders have reinforced this area with epoxy'd rope, graphite, and Kevlar.  I went with traditional 'glass -- just a lot of it.

One thing I wasn't ready for was the amount of stuff that fell into the slot -- bits of 'glass and sanded 'glass and whatever else had accumulated in the garage over the years.  I might have to fashion a vacuum hose to get down there, or alternatively, I can try to blow it out.  I can reach the very bottom of it through the inspection plates on the centerboard trunk but I can't reach the "shelf" as it sits now.  If I let it go like this I'm guaranteed a jam so I'll have to figure out a way to get in there.

I also noticed that while taking this down to a "grey matte finish" I went through a bit too far here and there.  So, again, out came the epoxy!  This is actually serious business to get this right as at least one PocketShip suffered some water damage at the centerboard slot because of sanding through to bare wood.  The swelling of the wood caused the centerboard to jam and that's not an experience I'd like to repeat.

 

After waiting for that to cure and then sanded down again, out came the painting supplies -- finally.

And came up with this --

 

The pictures are way better than the actual painting project.  This was just primer, after all, soon to be covered in "Shark Grey" anti-fouling paint, but it's still pretty great to get to this point.  Over the next couple days I'll have to source a trailer and some more primer, but for now I'll call it a day!

Sandy Bottoms

The last few days have been a blur with many lost hours sanding and re-sanding this enormous boat.  There hasn't been much of an update on this because the incremental progress doesn't translate well to photos or writing or mental health.

Since the big fiberglass episode of 2020, I've sanded the whole hull down to a dull grey, as described.  The manual describes "a full day" could be dedicated to sanding the hull, but it was really more than a week, 2-3 hours a session.  I simply don't have the stamina or the patience to dedicate more than that.  But it got done partly with the help of podcasts.

As a side note, I never really got into podcasts.  I'm the perfect demographic for it, but as a hyper-visual learner, the idea of listening instead of reading never really appealed to me.  Faced with the hours-long choice of the shopvac or the dulcet tones of a journalist or storyteller and maybe learning something, I opted for the latter.

I started with Serial: Season One (the one that really started it all); NASA We Have a Podcast; 1619; The Sultanate (a podcast from an expat in Oman where I will be moving this fall); Every Little Thing; and a couple others.  It really makes the sanding just a bit more enjoyable, and I feel like I've entered a new realm of cultural awareness.  Don't get me wrong -- sanding still sucks, and I'm not listening to podcasts when I'm not sanding, but it is a much better enterprise.  To put the hours in perspective, I finished Serial: Season One and at least a couple dozen sessions of the others during this sanding effort.  Gird your loins, fellas!

Here's the start of it with about a third of one side done sanded down.  This took about 3 hours.  I used 80 grit to get the first stuff down and went over it again with 120 where needed.

 

After awhile, I moved to the topsides and got as far as this before putting down the Bosch and thinking about actually sailing.

Luckily, Chris, a fellow PocketShip builder who lives in the area asked if I wanted to go for a run.  And how!  So after a couple scheduling stops and starts, we were off on a spirited day on Lake Waconia, getting back just ahead of sunset, but not after a great dinner at a lakeside restaurant.

I promised not to pepper Chris with too many questions, but I was just getting back into the flow of things and needed answers.  He was more than happy to oblige, as always, and I'm grateful to call him a friend and source of motivation.  His boat still looks amazing after almost 10 years.

I still had the beast in the garage to deal with, along with a couple logistical problems.  The first was to deal with the various layers.  While sanding, these layers become exposed as lines which are actually small depressions where two layers meet up.  It can be difficult to sand these down well because it's easy to burn too deeply through a layer of glass.  I knew this would be the tradeoff between a horizontal 'glassing job (where you take the 'glass and spread it aft-forward instead of across the beam) so I wasn't surprised to see it.  There's also a risk that the painting will not be entirely uniform over these areas.  Time will tell.

One area that did surprise me was this fenced area on the port side.  For some reason the epoxy here was really light.  A quick rub with the sander exposed fiberglass layers and a sheen underneath.  I can only conclude that I didn't apply a second or third layer here -- and this was only really discovered after sanding it down a bit.

So, out came the epoxy and a couple wasted hours!  This of course needed to be sanded down again, along with a couple small patches because why not.

Meanwhile, I was thinking about how to level the keel.  It's kind of tough to see from the above photo but I spent a couple days figuring this out.  I have a much bigger garage than I did when I started this (I literally moved next door a few years ago) but a much smaller house.  That meant stuff wound up in the garage and in practice my workspace is much smaller.

 

I used a couple small 2-ton jacks and jackstands I was going to return to Amazon to flatten the keel.  The tradeoff was I couldn't use the furniture dollies as I couldn't get the bow high enough to level it out.  After a few hours over a couple days, here is the result:

The angle of the photo is actually a bit off.  The middle bubble is centered and the boat lies flat.  The photo reminds me of a little spaceship hovering over the grey landscape of a moon.  Of course, just after this photo, I bumped the keel and the spaceship fell off and disappeared into the garage.  I still haven't found it.  Whatever.  Onto painting!

Transom Fiberglass Fun

The book states (paraphrasing) that when you're 'glassing the transom, the end is in sight.  Well, behold my end!  This one is a bit darker though not any less shiny. 

I plan to keep this bright except for some trim around the edges.  The trim will be about the width of the rub rails all around.  I wish I could keep the whole thing bright but I had to glob up some filler for some of the corners at the transom skirt back in the day.  The rest of it is really pretty.  I think it's sapele if I remember right, real wood not the marine ply, so its rich hues shine through.  I've been researching marine decal makers so we'll see how that goes.

It does feel pretty good to get this done as I wasn't sure how to pull this off, given the transom has been sitting on a couple tires for about 5 years with nothing supporting it otherwise.  So, a visit to a generic hardware store and $40 later got me two small jacks which I used to lift the end enough to gain access to the transom skirt.  I used a couple small boards of padauk to protect the boat from the jack.  They're also both on furniture dollies so I can move the boat around if needed.

As I write that last sentence, I have glossed over the sheer terror I felt when I was underneath this 1,000lb object with nothing supporting it except the two generic jacks.  An inadvertent kick and I'd be a pancake, or at least trapped in the cockpit.  No kidding -- I checked to be sure I had my phone just in case.  I think I'll visit a big box store tomorrow to get a couple cinderblocks for more permanent and safer support.

But with the boat off the ground I also noticed a potential problem.  Years ago, I fixed a mis-measure at the companionway entrance, and right in the same spot where it's been sitting on a tire for awhile the entrance is bowed a bit, bending in towards the cabin.  I'm not sure how I'd go about fixing this;  I'm hoping that now that it's relieved of pressure it'll reshape itself.  It's not that bad, but it's noticeable, at least to my eye.  Nothing I can do about it now except to continue with the bottoms up part of the build.  When I re-flip it I'll be able to see how bad it is.  In the meantime, the support point is now the anchor locker which is a far better place for it to be.

With no way to fix that, I went ahead and did the transom.  I was able to get some 'glass on the transom skirt at the same time, bringing the 'glass around the bend a few inches up.  This wasn't easy to do and I almost regretted the effort as I could've just stopped at the bend and sanded it clean later.  But I figured I'd give it a try.  I had to cut a small dart right in the  middle but otherwise it wasn't too bad and it'll be a good strong joint when I double this up on the flip.  I was also able to double up on the sides, too, and got those down.  Without breaking my arm too much, I've got the 'glass thing down pretty well by now -- just in time not to ever have to do it again.

With some extra epoxy on the cup, I also dropped a couple strips of 6oz 'glass where the transom meets the bottom of the hull.  I'll add a couple strips on either side of those once they cure.  I was also able to finish most of the reinforcements around the chine, keel, and bow.  Here's a section where two bits of 6oz 'glass meet.  There's another 4 layers of 4oz 'glass underneath this so I feel pretty good about the strength here.  Except for maybe a bulky look when painting I don't think you can go wrong with too many reinforcements.

One challenge I had with all the thin strips of 6oz 'glass was figuring out how to lay the frog tape as I couldn't get the width just right as the keel and everything else changes shape over its length.  I was eyeballing it most of the time and then realized that I could just use a small bit of it and have an actual size template against which to place the tape.  Wow, wish I noticed that earlier as it would've saved a few yards of tape.  So now I can just run this little guy along the tape and see if I sized it right.

I'm aiming to get all the 'glass work done in a couple days so I can start with the epoxy layers, but I'll need more epoxy to do that, so CLC gets my credit card again.  Pouring money into a boat I may not even get to sail is really depressing!

Crate and Bottle

One of the more intriguing parts of the manual is how flippant it can be about certain parts of the build. For example, there's one photo and a few words on building the crate. Make sure S is towards the back and B is towards the front. OK, that's not so bad, and maybe if one wanted to simply assemble the crate as described to sit immobile on a concrete garage floor, that might be enough. But I'm adding wheels! And so what should've been a 90 minute project, tops, turned into a two day excursion with multiple trips to Menards, a few dead screws, and wrists that can now break iron.

As faithful readers will note, I had a mild anxiety attack when the kit was delivered and I realized I was indeed on my way to building a 16 foot boat in my 17 foot garage. I'd carefully measured all ways to Sunday to ensure it would fit, knowing then, as I know now, that it wouldn't be possible without being able to push the crate around to get those last few inches. Chris gave me his casters, saving me the trip to source them, and adding to the metaphysical karmic world that I, too, will pass these casters on to a fellow PocketShip builder.

The parts themselves are CNC cut from fiberboard, which is a material I admit I wouldn't have chosen myself if I were to build this from scratch. In my experience, fiberboard is brittle, sensitive to water, and difficult to fasten. The idea it could support an 800 pound hull with all of its assorted gear (plus me) in a work environment - epoxy, soda cans, humidity - made me nervous. All of those biases proved true as my first attempt to assemble the parts failed miserably. The second attempt (with more robust fasteners) was successful but its performance is TBD. The fact that PocketShips all over the world are shipped with this as the crate doesn't ease my anxiety.

This couldn't be built in my garage, so rather than subjecting my neighbors to me struggling with 50 pounds of fiberboard, I built it in the backyard. Wind gusts topping 40mph made for an interesting experience. In fact, there was a sail scheduled today with the club that was cancelled due to the wind, which is unfortunate because my last two sails had more than enough dead calm for a long while. Not today. As I write this, it sounds like planes are flying overhead, but it's the wind against the house.

I first drilled some pilot holes through the crate and used those as guide holes to continue into the 2x4. The champion fasteners were 5/8" diameter lag screws (1/2" tops) with a lock nut. I didn't have a drill bit that fit so I used a ratchet, many times. As an aside, I'm now qualified to join the professional arm wrestling circuit. To the frame, I added the casters Chris gave me and behold, I had a crate with wheelies.

The frame comes together. A broom marks the centerline. The PocketShip pallet sits against the house. It will become a vegetable planter.

Casters get added. Blue marks the drill.

I dragged it through the backyard and left it in the driveway so that I could clear the panels and other shop equipment from the garage. When done, thinking it would be quite cool to see an upright keel, I couldn't help but drop the keel in place. This was a struggle: lifting the keel high enough to clear the height of the crate without damaging anything, especially myself, took a lot of effort. Care should be taken to ensure the centerboard trunk fits exactly between the two crate panels. With a small thud, given the weight of the keel, it slid quite snugly into the slots. I then set the bilge and side panels in the crate. For a moment, it looked like a boat! Holy cow, that thing's big. But it fits in the garage, like a ship in a bottle, and that's the most important thing.

The downside is I've now lost my flat, smooth surface for the larger pieces, such as final prep for the side panels. I actually finished these a couple nights ago and set them aside. Each side panel took about 2.5 hours to sand and maybe 10 circles of 120 grit paper. To extrapolate that, the bilge panels are at least 50% of that area. Call it 4 hours per bilge panel, 2.5 per side panel, and 1.5 for each topside. That means the total sanding effort, straight through, is about 16 hours. That ties nicely with other bloggers but doesn't count my, let's say, slightly more robust sanding requirements in the poor epoxy areas. Nor does it count sanding the keel. And of course that's only to 120; "bright" areas will need to go to 220 and in the case of the centerboard, it's up to 400. Mental fortitude is a requirement for this boat, which I have, but only within certain limits.

Sanding the nights away. Half way done with this half.

To that end, sanding must have music else it's unbearable. The mind wanders into strange territories, as has been described elsewhere. My mind is especially prone to oddity which is why I need to keep myself mentally occupied. I am thinking of switching from Pandora to podcasts. If anyone has a recommendation, send me a note in the comments section or via email.

Where your mind can wander while sanding. Believe me when I say this is only the beginning...

I also spent a couple nights this week fixing the busted bilge panel. Chris lent me his heat gun - a power hair dryer, if I ever saw one - that softened the epoxy enough that a tug separated the joints. I was relieved when I didn't set the epoxy, wood, or myself on fire. These had to be once again sanded smooth to remove the epoxy in preparation for a refit. It took a long time, but the refit worked well.
 

Finger joints separated and sanded back down. These were "scarfed" back together later that evening.

I oversanded some of the tops of the joints so it will need some filler but I'm pleased with the result. When this is 'glassed and painted, it'll look smooth as butter. I still have to sand the inside face, but that won't take too long. I've also decided to wait for the flip to fix the outside face, which just needs a good sanding and some filler, and something I'll be doing throughout the hull before final 'glassing, anyway, not just that panel. Part of that decision is due to the fact I have no room in the garage anymore. The more important driver of the decision is that I don't need a smooth outside hull to stitch that panel together, and I'm itching to start stitching.

A tight fit in the garage. I'll be working like this often. The keel looks perky, though.

Panels fit nicely. It was a thrill to see this!

The mailman was delivering the latest catalog of something as I was clearing the garage and stopped to ask me what it was. I said it's a boat I'm building. He goes, you are good with wood, and continued on his journey. There was just an assumption there about being 'good with wood' that puzzled me, and still does. It was actually the second time today that I was complimented on my woodworking (one with evidence, one without). They obviously hadn't seen me pulling apart the first finger joints on the bilge panels.

The neighbor pulled up with a large used pontoon they'd just acquired for a steal. The father of one of the neighbors is a king woodworker. He did their fireplace mantle and also the window panes in our house (our windows are nearly 100 years old and very unstable). By any definition, he is a craftsman. So I showed him the rudder and the boom gallows and the tiller I made from laminated padauk and ash. He said they were terrific and was impressed. Now, a compliment from the mailman I can dismiss. A compliment from a salty dog like that made me blush.

Though time will tell if the thing actually floats, not to mention how it turns into the wind, heels, and tracks. That's a long way away, but I'll take the small victories as I get them. Off to Chicago for a couple days on a business trip, then a couple nights home, then a visit to CLC for Okoumefest. While the boat will have to wait, I can't complain about where I'm headed.

Padook, Padawk, Whatever

When I was sourcing wood for the cabin sole, I went through a very involved process involving spreadsheets, calipers, forecasting tools, and leprechauns. In the end, I wound up with padauk. But when I called Hardware Supply for the wood, I pronounced it "pad-owk". The guy on the other end said what? I said, pad-owk, it's a reddish hardwood? He goes, you mean padook? I said, yeah, sure padook. Now, maybe that doesn't matter, and they've made songs about different pronunciations of the same thing, though I find it highly pretentious and silly to say "to-mah-to" vs. "to-may-to". The padauk was one the best choices I made but is a bit of a fussy, messy wood.

Elephants add to the aura.

It's oil-based for one. Before glue up, it has to have a very light rub with acetone to remove the excretions after milling. The rags come out looking like they were dipped in spaghetti sauce. Much like teak, the color fades over time, especially with exposure to sunlight. But whereas teak turns grey, padauk becomes a chocolate brown. Milling itself is not a problem but it's definitely a hardwood. There's an obvious difference in running a length of padauk through the table saw vs. ash, for example. And then there's the dust. It's a fine, red dust that coats about everything. Collect enough and I'm sure it can work as a dye. It smells good to me but wearing a respirator is essential, and is good practice, anyway. I've worked with ash, maple, and walnut and they are all easier to work with than padauk, but the results are worth the effort.

At one time, padauk was the wood choice of kings. Now, it's the wood choice of wanna-be boatbuilders but still serves the same purpose. It looks crazy beautiful when varnished, with a reddish glow that is sexy and smooth all at the same time. I don't need to hang velvet in the cabin because I have my padauk. I don't recommend it for anything more than trim or floors as the strong color can detract from other highlights. The same principle applies to bathrooms done entirely in pink. Pink is not a command color but a highlight. Same with padauk.

Don't do this.

Structurally, the glue ups seem strong, but there are small voids here and there, especially on the ends. I don't think that's the wood but the way I'm milling in that the last inch or so through the table saw is tricky and I'm losing contact with the fence. While strong, I wouldn't recommend it for anything structural, though that's true of most any hardwood. The masts cannot be hardwood because it needs to be a little pliant as the wind takes the sails and bends it to and fro. A hardwood would simply snap and that's no good. I thought about doing a lamination for the boom and bowsprit, but for the structural reasons and for overkill, decided against it.

I took a break from epoxy over the last couple days, which were mostly spent back on the bagpipes as I had a concert to play last night. For many reasons, I hadn't picked up the pipes since St. Paddy's Day and to say I was rusty would be just plain understated. I was surprised, though, that the practice chanter flowed as usual. Muscle memory is an amazing thing, that after not thinking about something for awhile, it all came back without much of a hitch at all. Some of these tunes are so internalized I'll be on my deathbed running fingerwork on my IV tubes. The concert was fun and the band headed over to O'Gara's afterwards. The sight of 20 kilted folks walking into the bar turned heads, but we're pretty used to the attention by now.

The band at the concert hall.

In the green room watching.

On the boat front, I found the culprit for the crooked keel. There was a separation of about 1/8" of an inch between the aft and bow keel panels caused by too much blocking. It's not serious, but it's there. After writing my trusty comrade in arms about the best way to go about fixing this, I lathered up some thickened epoxy into the joint and waited for it to dry. I'll sand this down later today. I also applied some epoxy to the voids on the underside of the keel.

Joint separation.

Joint preparation.

Joint saturation.

I then turned my attention to the tiller. As mentioned earlier, I've always wanted a laminated tiller. After the fun (not sarcastic) of the boom gallows, I was looking forward to this even more. After milling the padauk and ash, I made a pattern block out of a leftover floor board from renovating the house next door. (I don't really throw a lot away.)

Milled padauk and ash to spec. 3/8" by 1" strips.

This pattern wasn't nearly as strong as the 8/4 lumber I used for the boom gallows but I couldn't justify getting timber just for a pattern and I had nothing thicker. It later proved a little tricky to secure the strips to the 3/4" bottom of the pattern, especially at the point, but it worked out OK in the end. The severe bend at one end of the tiller was fussy but eventually succumbed to the strength of the Irwin. Still, I was surprised I was able to pull it down enough to keep a fair curve.

Glue up with manageable squeeze out.

The pattern, lamination, and pattern block. Pretty good fit.

I also made a real effort to scrape off the squeeze out before it fully cured. When it was still in putty form, I took a straight edge from scrap wood and ran it along the side. Then I took a screwdriver along each of the strips on both sides and chiseled out more epoxy. This created bits that reminded me of popcorn. They wouldn't taste very good, even with butter. Who am I kidding? They're delicious! Avatar, anyone?

Epoxy popcorn. Yum!

I need to do better at figuring the amounts needed for this as I feel like I'm wasting perfectly good epoxy. In the scheme of things, it's probably a pump at most, maybe two, but the sign of a good builder is not only what materials are used, but how well they are used. It went better than the gallows, which had enormous amounts of squeeze out. Still, the learning curve continues.

It's my wife's 29th :) birthday today so not much boatbuilding. As before, the tiller will be sanded aggressively to remove the epoxy, then planed and cut to spec. I'm hopeful I can salvage enough to make a tiller extension from this. The area under the curve may prove just long enough to do that. I'd also like to get the keel out of the shop so I can work on the rudder next. At this point, it's just waiting for good weather for the pour, which means somewhere around August.

Good News / Bad News

The universe telling me something?

The number one thing every blog warns against is the crooked keel. This is mostly due to the way the aft part of the keel lies on its taper, and the solution is to prop it up a bit to avoid it lying flat. The good news: I was successful in preventing the crookedness due to lying flat. The bad news: my keel now curves AWAY from the table about half an inch. I propped it too high. Sigh.

The centerboard trunk glue up paradigm.

Aligning the keel so it doesn't lay flat. It worked - too well.

It doesn't appear as serious as some others, though, as I could easily bend it back and lay the keelson on top without any noticeable curve. That makes me think after the lead pour, screwing in the cap, then the keelson, not to mention stitching to the bilge panels, I don't expect this to be much of an issue. Still, it's annoying as I went out of my way to try to get this one right, and oversteered into the ditch.

Meanwhile, as that was curing, I put together the keelson and let that sit under a battery for a few hours to set. It's too long for the shop (or just about anywhere else in the house, really) so I set it up by the front door. This was fun to get downstairs for the dry fit.

Battery + keelson puzzle joint = longer keelson

Resigned to a krooked keel for now, I sanded everything down smooth and applied a 1/2" roundover to the bottom.

Close up of roundover and void in the plywood. Roundover was OK. The void isn't something I did.You can also see a void between the centerboard blocking and the keel blocking (this is the triangle timber between the centerboard trunk and the keel nose). I'll fix this when I do the flip.

Roundover and another blocking joint. This is the extra piece I added because the keel blocking pattern was too small. Turned out OK. Need a little filler here and there to finalize the work. Like the one earlier, I'll take care of this at the flip.

I then sat it up to admire the work so far and felt a rush of pride. It was like watching a thing rise from the nothing, this thing that was at one time a series of two dimensional panels was now a 9 foot behemoth in my small basement shop. It doesn't look like a boat yet but I can get a true sense of the scale. It also sits up very nicely on its edge; very well balanced with just a touch to send it over. That was a bit of a surprise, and a good thing. I brought it to the family room and laid down next to it, as if I were in the cabin. As everyone says, this is a big little boat! If this is my reaction now, I'm bracing the neighborhood for when I actually make real progress.

First view of the keel assembly. Very proud poppa! The frog tape is when I laid down a dry fit on the wrong side of the non-mirror half of the keel.

Perky - the full keel with keelson laying on top. Need to fair the noseblock a little bit, which I expected as I kept it a little pointy on purpose to sand down later.

What would this blog be without a requisite shot of the boom gallows? After 2 layers of epoxy, sanded to 220, I put the first coat of varnish on it, and once again the colors popped.

First varnish layer. You can see the notches from the band saw here. The macro angle makes it look more distorted than it really is. Debating whether to brush over with white paint or leave as is. Otherwise, looks fine when not zoomed in 200x.

It's a funny thing, because the sanding brings the epoxy down to a matte grey finish that looks terrible. And then a little bit of chemical coatings get applied and pow! It's shiny and new again. I'm a fan of varnish, even moreso because this was leftover from another project and I didn't have to buy it.