Starboard Float – laminating outside skin

Started today with cutting the holes for hatches while dad hit the side of the float with the sander from the deck lamination.  Needed to get these all cleaned up to prepare to laminate the side of the float.  He got off light – the sander has a vacuum attachment that sucks most of the crap up.  The jig-saw I used to cut the holes… well, let’s just say that sweating while cutting fiberglass does not mix… My forearms have a nice shade of red prickles from resting them in fiberglass dust while cutting… oops.

I had center holes marked on the deck for the circular hatches, but they did not come with a pattern, only trace the cover.  This is no good because I wanted them to be in the center of the deck.  Took a measurement of the hole size and made a tool out of one of the Copula fasteners that came in, some foam and a pencil.  Worked like a charm.

Decided that after all this hard work and itching I should see what the fruits of my labor looked like

Not bad if I do say so myself, and access to the inside of the float is still good 🙂

While the float was up-right, I took the opportunity to dig out the foam from all the access hatches deep enough that the screws would go into bog once back-filled.  Also trimmed the beam locating dowels  to the proper height.

After that, the float went on its side (outside skin first) to get cleaned and prepped.

And then the external fabric put in place and trimmed

We decided to leave the keel fabric a little long and just trim it back in the morning with the sander.

All laminated and drying

Time spent: 5 hours