Skerry build day 30: sanding and shaping

Today I flipped the boat over and sanded the rails. My trusty block plane made quick work of evening out the rails with the top of the boat, then I followed with the sander. It's amazing how quickly the sandpaper runs out of steam - I've used about 3-4 disks for the rails.

Next step was rounding over the edges. This was quite painless with the router, though my dewalt is a bit heavy and was tricky to keep flat. A trim router might be a better tool. Once the router was out I also rounded over all the spars and the tiller. Now it's all ready for epoxy/varnish.

Rounding over the rails I noticed that the top panel had delaminated on the aft port side. This panel had delaminated before and I'd thought I had fixed it but now another bubble had appeared. I filled the hole with ligthly thickened epoxy and now it all seems fine.... If it delaminates again I'll have to figure out a better solution, especially as by then the boat will be all epoxied. Hope I don't have to figure this one out.

I also got the chance to shape the rudder and dagger board. Now I can epoxy those and call that part of the project done. I'll probably put some fiberglass on the bottom and leading edge of the foils just to make sure they don't get too dented during the inevitable groundings (which I hope to 'enjoy' not too far into the future).



Time: 4 hours
Total: 86 hours