upper deck is painted

The upper half of the boat was finally painted. Again I used Perfection which I believe is a pretty great paint.

This time though I did not thin and did not tip. I just rolled it with a West roller made for applying epoxy. They work beautifully for paint....and the final result is really good. The paint really levels out great, no roller marks.

The cockpit side panels and the round transition received 2 layers of paint and so did the sides of the cabin house. The rest pretty much got one single layer for which I did not try to achieve full opacity as they will be covered up later with grey KiwiGrip.

I think I could have pay more attention to detail and done a better job on fairing those cockpit side panels. I might layout another layer on those panels and try to give them some texture to hide out some of the not so fair spots....Or maybe I will use Kiwi in the sides as well.....I will see that soon.

I am now off to Brazil for a well deserved 2 weeks break....I will dream about my boat (for sure) as there is little else to do before splashing.

Chain plates in

Figuring out where to place the gussets was one thing, but actually bolting the chain plates on those gussets is a whole different story....

Days in Turkey are currently really hot, so working inside that tight cabin trying the correct way to drill those holes on the gussets as close as possible to the shear clamp was not easy !

After I had mark the precise location of the chainplates, I used my Bosh Multimaster to cutout the upper deck. That tool is just wonderful and I could not have done it without it.

The place around the gussets was so tight with the frame and decks and hull and all....that i could not fit my driller properly in order to drill the holes.

What really saved me this time is a little gizmo I bought that allows you to drill perpendicular to your driller. That is quite an advantage and I also used that gizmo to redrill some hardware hole from below deck.

The holes were then filled with thickened epoxy and the bolts were tight. I did not use any release agent on them so I hope I wont have to remove the chainplates any time soon.

I guess I could have tried to place the chain plates further towards the shear but that would have implied working even closer to that gusset-frame-hull tight corner. And that would have been simply impossible to do with the kind of straight down chain plates I made. The design of the chainplates would have to be changed.

And I leave that decision for the next builders cause I am done with my chainplates !

No matter what, the final assembly looks really sturdy and I believe the boat could easily be lifted from those chainplates. The chain plates themselves are made of 5mm stainless steel, 8cm by 17 by twenty something as I recall.....They were bolted through the gussets with 10mm stainless steel bolts.

deck faired

Deck is finally faired, sanded and ready for painting !

İ followed the exact same process as for the hull :
1-faired all cloth seams and overlaps with a thicker mixture of resin + West Microlight 410 fairing filler. İ used a medium size plastic squeegee and made sure no bumps were left behind and everything was flat to the touch.
2- after sanding the initial putty, İ applied a thickned float coat all over with an even large squeege and left a thin film of resin just enough to cover up the cloth weave. Actually İ used a large metal spatula. İ had to round off the corner of that spatula as not to leave any scratch on the fresh float coat but it worked a wonder leaving a smooth thin film of thickened epoxi.

Then came the dreaded fairing time..... Except this time İ have to admit i did not kill myself handsanding with the longboard. İnstead İ went with my large orbital sander and 80 grit dry paper ! That went fast ! But İ was carefull enough not to oversand. The main reason İ did not use the longboard is that İ did not intend to obtain such a flat surface as İ did for the hull. No need for that since most of the deck surfaces will be overpainted with Kiwi Grip which will certainly mask any imperfections. Another reason is that it is impossible to use the longboard for the cabin top or even for the cockpit floor because of the bensons İ glued.
So İ just started with the sander.....and finished the job off with it. İt looks good, no apparent flaws to the touch.

One thing İ did before fairing was to drill all the holes for the hardware placement. And to make sure İ would not loose sight of them (which apparently happened to other builders) they were all overdrilled and filled with blue colored epoxi. İ used small amounts of a special epoxi coloring agent. İt worked out great as all filled holes were still well visible after applying the float coat.

İf you zoom on the below picture you will see the blue marks for the jib rails bolts .


After sanding the float coat, İ pre-drilled all holes . Now İ am pretty sure İ will not loose them even after painting.



Next steps are primer, paint and anti slid Kiwi Grip. İ also have to repaint the interior cabin and fix the compression post but there is not much to do before İ can turn my attention to mast and sails.... :):):):)