Flipside

Its a good thing I live in Alabama. Thats not something youll hear this Chicago transplant say very often, but tonight its true. You see, the catalyzation reaction of epoxy is very temperature dependent. And in the middle of November, the temperature of my attached, unheated garage is hovering around 55 degrees, at the bottom edge of the working temperature for epoxy. With a low temp forecast of 37 tonight, I expect the garage/workshop to stay in the 50s. When the sun streams in the windows tomorrow, it will quickly climb to near 70. So even though we are going through a bit of a cold snap by Alabama standards, it is still boat building weather. Farther north, builders are working hard to keep temps in the workable range, and some are even quitting altogether and waiting until spring.

Kathy and I put a coat of epoxy on the flip side of the six strakes we coated yesterday. Before we started, I had to do some fairly extensive sanding of a couple of the scarf joints on the first pair of strakes I joined. Youll remember that pair wasnt exactly showroom quality. Unfortunately, this was the #4 pair, which will be most visible as the top-most boards. But once again, this is all a learning experience. I quickly got the hang of things, and the later joints are pretty tight and clean. But those will be the ones most obscured by paint in the final boat. Total hours 6.00.

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