Finished Cockpit Glassing

So 25 yds. of new fiberglass arrived on Tues.  Since everything was prepared I rolled out a length for the center of the cockpit including the foot well.  This was by far the most challenging fiberglassing I've done to date.

The geometry of the footwell in combination with the front of the cockpit and the transom makes for some interesting curves and bends.  I cut darts and overlaps where I thought it made sense and smoothed everything out.  Again, trying to get everything as close and as smooth as possible before mixing a drop of epoxy.

I started laying down the resin with the center of the footwell and worked my way out and up the sides.  I had to do this while sitting in the cockpit and trying to avoid disturbing the dry glass that was there.  This involved some pretty strange contortions where at times I was on one knee with a leg hanging out of the boat while leaning over the footwell.  I had a difficult time with getting out all the bubbles in the corners and to a lesser extend the bottom edges of the footwell.

From there I moved on to the forward center section of the cockpit right behind the companion way opening.  This being flat was much easer to do.

The rest of the area to be epoxied could be reached from outside the boat and also flat so it was much easier to do.

Upon inspecting the work I noticed that I still had some moderately sized bubbles and lifting in the corners and along the edges of the bottom of the footwell.  I went back and worked out as many of these as I could.

After about 2 hours (using slow hardener) I went back to check the work and some of the bubbles had returned (or I just missed them in the first place).  I put on a latex glove dipped my finger in alcohol and pushed these back down.  That did the trick for most of them.

After drying I noticed a few small bubbles that I will have to take care of and there will be some sanding in the corners to remove a few rough strands of glass.  But it is a step done.  From here out the glassing should be MUCH easier.

 Hours this session: 4

Hours total: 443