It's that time again!

Here's the invitation you may have already received if you live on Gabriola! Haven't received an invitation? Turn up (and turn over) anyway!

There has been a flurry of mixing epoxy, applying fibreglass, spreading epoxy, rolling epoxy and all manner of other things to do with epoxy since our last entry. It's taken a fair few tanks of propane from the Co-op to keep the shop warm enough to cure everything, but now we're almost there. The final coat went on yesterday. This week Trevor and Robbie will build cradles, detach the hull from the floor, sand the edges so that no one's hands will get hurt, and do the various other things that need to be done before the hull can be turned. Mary will be making turnovers, with help from cousin Pam! (120 last time, and eaten to the last crumb.)

Roll, roll, roll your boat...

... well, roll-coat, really. When glass cloth is first applied, the weave is very obvious. Although this would give a snazzy tweed texture to the finished hull, it is not desirable. So -- roll-coating.

Yesterday we mixed up batches of epoxy and applied it all over the hull with a roller. We'll do this likely three more times, until the weave of the cloth is no longer visible.

We intended to do another coat today, but yesterday's coat was still tacky late this morning. It's green-cured now, but too late in the day to begin. So -- tomorrow it is! We want to apply each of the layers before the preceding one really hardens, since if we do we needn't sand everything.

Glassing hull #2 -- thanks, yogurt eaters!

No final count yet, but last time I checked we were up to 40 yogurt pots. Perfect for mixing!

Here's the starboard side, with the glass taped into position. Tape comes off once there's enough epoxy to hold the glass in position.

And they're off! Let the spreading commence.

... and continue. It took us one day to install the glass on the two sides. Mixing epoxy takes about as much time as spreading it. Note the sunny day outside -- yay weather!

This is Day 2. The keel gets five layers of glass. On Day 2, we applied two of them.