Finally ready for paint!

It was a long day of sanding today. I finally broke down and bought a Porter-Cable 6" random orbit sander. It was clear that without something like that, getting the hull to where I wanted it was going to take forever.

Even with the sander, I spent four hours on this today. Went through 17 sanding pads too.

When I last left the hull, I had hand-sanded it all over, but there were a bunch of small low spots. So I went back over and skim-coated them with some thickened epoxy (used micro-balloons). So the task of the day was to get all that leveled out.

I don't know how to take a picture of "smooth", but here it is: This thing is SMOOTH.

It is dusty too. I spent most of my time on the sides and the transoms, because I want those to end up with a nice gloss finish. I also went ahead and gave the bottom a good once-over, mainly just to scuff it up so the primer adheres well.

I also spent some time last night cutting out the sheer clamps. Way back when I bought my batch of Home Depot lumber, I had set aside a 16' 2x10 with the hope that I could get those boards out of that. It took a lot of doing, because the board was not perfectly clear. I was working my way around knots the whole time. Eventually, I got it. Here's an artsy low-depth-of-field shot of what I ended up with:

They may need a bit of fine-tuning, but that can wait. Its a lot easier running small stock like that through the table saw than trying to cut 10" wide boards.

I also got the other side of the centerboard glassed this morning. Second time around was a lot easier than the first. It turned really cold overnight, so it might take it a few days to fully cure. In the mean time, I'll start glassing the rudder tomorrow.