Well I’m not moving as fast I’d like to be, but any progress is still progress. LOL. The wind is making my life a nightmare right now and work isn’t helping either. Still, I’m almost done with one side now after deciding to hit the larger, less tedious areas first. I’m also almost 3/4 gallon into my VE resin. I forgot how much resin CSM can soak up. LOL. The one area that was a decent pain in the rear was the outer edges of the hull. I laid a thin layer of resin and let it start gelling up a bit, then wet out the glass and laid it down so it’d be a bit more willing to stick for me. Seems to have worked ok.
I have noticed a few spots where I can see a some air bubbles, mainly around the edges of the fresh glass. Even soaking the crap out of it with resin and filling in the deeper pits, it just didn’t want to lay down on the edges in some spots. I’m thinking it should be fine to just sand out the air bubbles and then fill them in with fairing compound. My reasoning is that the strength is already there from the new layup, so sanding a few bubbles out shouldn’t weaken it by any large amount. What do you guys think?
So, a chemical respirator is a must if working in enclosed spaces within a boat. VE has adhesion and water resistant qualities similar to epoxy, so many of the high-end builders use it instead of poly, yet you can still use a poly gelcoat with good results.
