March 2013: Update
The sheathing took no time at all, thanks to the very near
perfect fairing and prep that the crew did beforehand. The function of
sheathing the hull is primarily to give a good surface for paint and to protect
the cedar veneers from chafe. But it would have resulted in a poor surface had
it not been properly faired.
The Landing School has been a fantastic resource for Pleasant Bay Boat and Spar Company. A couple of crew members have gone to the school which accounts for why we began the discussion about the notched trowel method of fairing a hull in the first place.
In my opinion, this is a process that should be reserved for novice builders. It could be argued otherwise but I thought we had been careful about building a fair hull from the get-go.
The drawings were digitized, and then the molds cut from those drawings on a CNC machine. We were spot-on setting up the molds and backbone. But in the final analysis, given that we did have some hollows, the process prevented further sanding mistakes.
The end result was incredibly fair, and we will see what the outcome will be next season when the epoxy has had a chance to bake, shrink and move about. I did concede that we saved time but not materials. The process required an additional 10 gallons of West System Epoxy plus the 407 fairing filler.
No comments:
Post a Comment