I went for another laid-up fiberglass rim, enough time having passed for me to forget how tedious it is.
I had no appropriate minicel foam, so I ended up using a piece of foam insulation. I'm trying to remember how it seems like you have built up more thickness than you actually have, so I'm on the third yard of 10 oz. glass. The brown splotches are where I'm trying to fill low spots with dookie.
I tried HAWK brand epoxy from Defender. It's cheap, but doesn't seem like great stuff.
I ran out of MAS resin before I ran out of MAS hardener, so I'm trying to use the MAS hardener with the leftover RAKA resin. People on the message board, say not to do it, but it seems to cure up just fine. In any case, I'm using this combo on parts that can be repaired if necessary.
I thought I had gone a little thin the last time I made one of these, so I really laid the plies on this time. When I got to removing the rim from the mold, it looked to be almost 1/4" thick! I wanted a thicker rim this time, so the edge would be rounded off more, for easier removal of the spray skirt. After trimming, it weighs a whopping three pounds !
Sanded and painted. I hope the trimming and sanding saved a little weight. :)
These went routinely, but I did an experiment and made a discovery. I made a foam bulkhead and a 1/8" plywood bulkhead with the same form as a template, and weighed them. The plywood bulkhead was actually lighter than the 3" minicel!
Glassing the hull went routinely, although faster than usual. I decided to err on the side of "too much epoxy" rather than too little.
The skeg box opened up with the router. I glassed around the edges with 2 oz. cloth.
While sanding, I noticed that not only did I hit the 'glass n a few spots, but I actually went through the glass to the bare wood! I'm trying little patches of saturated 2 oz. glass and two coats of epoxy as a remedy.
It seems to be working.
