-Week 16 Write Up- Applying Fairing compound, fairing, and filling...

This week was all about fairing compound.  On monday,  after we shaped the laminated skeg and stem shoes, we began coating the entire hull in fairing compound, which is an epoxy base filled with purple 'micro balloons' .  This is suppose to be easy to sand, but proved a challenge.  We spread it on as evenly as we could, which amounted to roughly an 1/8 inch over the entire boat.  Wednesday and Thursday were spent solely on board filing, which is the best way to achieve a uniform fairness over a large area.  I kept thinking to myself that some people would pay good money to get a work out as I did these two days, and that kept me going strong.  

After 16 hours of board filing spread over two days, we had a few small low spots around the hull, or little dents in the fairing compound that needed to be filled.  On Friday, these spots were sanded down, and the entire boat was sanded over with a finer 80 grit on the random orbitals.  This got rid of all the large scratch marks from the 36 grit boards.

Then, Brendan and Dave went over the entire boat with a long batten to really inspect and skillful mark out any last low or high spots.  The ones that were found are impossible to feel by hand, and only can be measured with this technique.  These spots were again filled with fairing compound.  This will sit over the weekend and we will sand it down again with board files.  We should be nearing the end of the fairing process.

The MC-30 is looking very smooth.

Here is the week 16 time lapse clip: