I woke up extra early this morning for some reason.. like 5:30. I had my coffee consumed and was ready to go! Jason and I got to the boat about an hour earlier than usual. This was nice because it was still shady and cool…great temperatures for fiberglassing! We prepped the surfaces and cut all of our glass pieces last night so all we had to do this morning was mix up some epoxy and lay it down! I didn’t take many pictures of this process because we were laying fiberglass for more than an hour, which is a *lot* of glass…
However… even though we started the morning with most of a can of epoxy, the layers of glass really soak it up and we ran out with one piece left! (figures!) So we took our lunch break and drove to St. Augustine to get some more epoxy and stop at Sailor’s Exchange to look at fabric that I didn’t end up buying. It was smoking hot outside when we got back, but we went ahead and put that last piece down so it could set up and we could be done with this side of the hardtop!
Even though we now have the slow hardener for the epoxy now, it’s still extremely hot here. I rolled the last piece as fast as I could in that overhead Florida sunlight and it actually went really well. Jason mixed too much epoxy so we had to just let it set up in the cup. When epoxy sets up it gets hot, so between the chemical reaction and the actual heat of the sun the cup started to melt! You couldn’t even touch the area where the cup was sitting. Jason set it in the paint tray full of acetone (this is fine..) and it started boiling! 😮 So yeah… we will measure more accurately next time! …and try to only do this in the shade!
On a side note, we sold a boat part on craigslist and met the guy at Harbor Freight since I wanted to go anyway. We ended up with some organizers and a large shade tarp! Now we can hide from the sun a little bit better when we’re up on deck!
Once we have the arch on, we can reinstall the bimini frame and bimini fabric and have a full cover over the back of the boat… but it will be a while yet for that, so this will work in the meantime!
Jason and I made delicious pizza for dinner and then headed back to the boat to sand and cut all the pieces for tomorrow’s adventure.
I predict tomorrow will be another unpleasant and itchy day!