The hull has now been sanded on the outside and is looking good to go. The thickened epoxy around the bow has been nicely shaped.    The CLC Expedition Wherry manual has you fiberglass the inside of the hull before the outside, and they have you add fiberglass tape to the outside keel after you fiberglass the outside. They have the tape on the outside layer.  I'm switching it all around and doing those things in reverse order. It just makes more sense to me. Here is what I'm doing: 1. I'm adding the keel tape first . The tape is intended to be an extra guard against rocks and dragging on the beach and such. The idea is that if it wears away that you can epoxy on another strip of tape in the future. I agree, but there is no reason that you must SEE the tape. Even the CLC manual has you sand the hull smooth, and so the tape would somewhat disappear anyway. However, putting the tape under the main fiberglass layer helps to hide it more. It also acts as a way to help hold the...

Still slow going on the Pygmy Pinguino 145. Today I managed to get the inside hull/deck joints epoxy filled and taped. The manual has you do this earlier in the build, but also suggests that if you are planning on cutting hatches later that you can wait until then to do this step. It's a great suggestion by Pygmy and well worth waiting. IF you do wait to do this step, you can usually also avoid their "tape a filled syringe to a stick with a plunger" idea and just do it all by hand. On boats as short as the Pinguino you can reach the entire run of the joint by hand. Easy.  Here's how it looks now... Tomorrow I'll scrap, sand, and give a light coat of epoxy to the joints so that you don't cut yourself on the sharp tape edges. This will soften them up and make them much more comfortable on your skin. Cheers! 

Some pretty straightforward steps this morning. First, I used my carbide scraper to clean up the raised and rough edges of the fiberglass tape that I put down on the underside of the Pinguino deck yesterday. Take your time and really clean it up. You'll feel the underside of the deck but won't ever see it, so make sure that it FEELS nice and smooth. Don't worry so much about how it looks. Then I used my random orbital sander to get some of the high spots flat and to lightly sand the wood panels. Why are you doing this?:  Your biggest goal is to cut, scrape, or sand out rough spots and especially bits that can cut  you. Fiberglass cloth can be VERY sharp and "sandpaper-like" on your knees and skin, so you want to make sure that anything that can cut or scrape you is removed and covered with a couple coats of fresh epoxy. You also want to completely seal the wood as you will not be fiberglassing the underside of the deck. This is the only waterproofing it wil...

Once you remove the deck from the hull, you have two steps to do on the underside of the deck. You can do both steps the same day and let it all cure. 1. Tape all the seams: You first need to add some thickened epoxy to the reinforcement plates at the front of the cockpit. The idea is that you make a smooth transition between the plates at all three butt joints. Then you add two layers of fiberglass tape just over the joints of the reinforcement panels and wet them out. Cute 6 pieces of tape 3.5" each, add them over the small joints, and wet them out. Now you'll tape ALL the seams. Cut long strips of fiberglass tape to run the entire length of the deck on all three main seams. See the picture below. Wet out the fiberglass tape and work it down into the seams so that it sits right on top with as few bubbles as you can get. It's pretty hard to use a squeegee, but you can dapple it with a disposable chip brush or disposable acid brush. Just make sure all the tape...

Here is another step that I do out-of-order from the official Pygmy manual. I lay the heavy fiberglass tape on the keel now, before I fiberglass the entire hull. The manual says to do it afterwards. However it looks much cleaner if you do it beforehand. Structurally there shouldn't be too much difference either way. In the future, if the keel ever needs to be re-taped, you just do what you would do otherwise... sand it a bit to rough it up and then lay down some more tape. No big deal. On the ends you will have better luck if you cut a few tucks in the edges of the tape. See below.  Try to make the tape as straight as you can. By putting it underneath the main fiberglassing it will be much less noticeable, but you'll still probably see it. The excess was simply squeegeed onto the bare wood which is fine and pre-saturates those areas. There is a huge debate on whether you should pre-saturate the panels or if you should just wet out the fiberglass cloth and hav...