Thursday, February 05, 2009

Glass bottom boat


Grey boat hull
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

The Brede hull has been fibreglassed with the finest fibreglassing cloth that Halfords do sell. Even though I remembered to add hardener to the resin the drying took a couple of days. It's cold but surely the stuff is supposed to go off faster than this ?

After this I ended up with a waterproof and strong but lumpy hull. Attacking it with an electric sander helped, once the resin had dried. Until then all I achieved was to clog sandpaper up. Eventually I managed to get one side very smooth. It's opposite didn't look great and a spray of high build primer showed the true horror. Think unrolled pastry and you'll know the texture.

With more sanding and a skin with Isopon filler, things looked a little more promising but I was wondering if this had been a good idea.

My problem is the prototype. Lifeboats are finished to an incredibly high standard so I can't hide anything by weathering. After an hour working the model over again with a couple of big sanding tools (handy hint - charge the battery on the detail sander before you want to use it !), a coat covered in dust and relief that I'd found a mask to keep the stuff out of my lungs, this is the result. Still not perfect but a whole lot closer. The primer has shown up a few areas of concern which will be dealt with using model filler.

And more sanding. Maybe I should have just carved it from solid ?

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