Today I rolled on a filler coat of epoxy over the fiberglass cloth that I did yesterday. It didn't entirely fill the weave but should be enough for me to sand pretty well. After sanding, I may add a third coat if needed but we'll see. What I actually did was try to roll on the epoxy like the manual says, but I've never had luck with the rollers. They quickly fill with air, they don't distribute the epoxy well like a paint roller distributes paint, and they tend to fall apart and leave little foam bits on my hull. But I tried it again today... it fell apart and left too much air in the epoxy... doh! So when I had had enough I went back to what I've typically done, which is to simply use the same yellow plastic spreader/squeegee thing that I used to wet out the fiberglass cloth yesterday. Easy. I wasn't sure if I'd like the red color of the stem fill but now I do. It's taken on a rich, darker color and it will work well. I like it so much in fact,...

Big step today... was able to get the hull bottom fiberglassed. It's always a bit magical watching the white cloth turn to crystal clear as you spread on the epoxy. I start in the middle and work toward one end, and then go back and work to the other end. The Pygmy manual does a good job of describing how to fiberglass the hull. Read it and you should be fine. Cut a piece of cloth to fit. Make sure you don't cut it toooo close. Leave at least two inches all around. Then use your hands and smooth the cloth all over the hull to help it conform to the hull shape. The only area where you will need to cut the cloth is the stern. The bow though should pretty easily conform to the shape without cutting.  I was working by myself for the most part, so I used small batches. Two pumps resin & hardener at a time. Thoroughly mix and pour on. I don't use the rollers. Instead, I just use a yellow plastic spreader and gently spread it over an area. I spread the epoxy on ...

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...

I sanded the bare-wood hull today. For the most part I used my random orbital sander with 120 grit paper.... but fair warning.... it can take off a LOT of material VERY quickly. So unless you're fairly practiced with a random orbital sander, I would suggest you hand sand or use no more than 220 paper on the ROS until you get used to how it works! Here's how it looks now. Yes, the stern didn't match up as well as I had hoped. Deal with it. The large gap got filled and will be fine, but doesn't look that great. When I helped my friend build his last year, he had the same issue. Starting to wonder if it's a design thing and if they should add a few millimeters to that panel. Weird, huh?  Notice that you can still see plenty of epoxy smears. They will all disappear under the fiberglass in the near future. Don't try to sand them all off!  The ends were pretty easy to round over and clean up. Be VERY cautious when rounding over the ...

I rarely do this, but I really have to say how much I like the 3M sanding block and sticky paper! What a great sanding system they have. Unlike traditional, cheap rubber sanding blocks that are not usually flat and that ALWAYS develop a hump in the middle which defeats the purpose of the block, this plastic block stays flat. It has a foamy base with just the right amount of give, although it's pretty firm. The handle fits my hand very well and is ergo-dynamically designed for comfort. The paper comes in rolls and is sticky backed. You simply tear off the proper length and stick it on. When done it easily peels off without ripping. The rolls come in an assortment of grits. The downside... the block is about $30 for the small one and over $60 for the long one. They're plastic! The paper is even more ridiculous at about $80 per roll! Gawd. But it's worth the investment. Cheers!

Today I removed all the pins and tape. Then I filled the remaining seams that had been covered by the tape with slightly thickened epoxy from a syringe. I let that sit for a couple hours and then came back again with very thickened epoxy and a Popsicle stick and smeared it into the seams that needed to be filled more. This was mostly on the seam between panels #3 and #4. The epoxy was thickened to about the "peanut butter" stage and could easily be smeared on and the excess scraped off with the stick. Here's a closeup of the #3 and #4 seam. Tomorrow it will be sanded flush. Another step at this stage is to use thickened epoxy to fill and shape the ends. The idea is that fiberglass cloth sits better on curved surfaces than on sharp angles. In addition, the seams at the ends look pretty bad and must be filled to look better. It adds a nice touch to the ends. The manual says to use wood flour, and that's what I've always done, but I wanted to experiment ...

Phew! I spent four days taping together the panels on the Pygmy Pinguino 145 and yesterday was finally able to get the panels epoxied. ( NOTE : By " spent four days " I really mean I tinkered on it for four evenings... probably took about 3-4 hours or so in total to tape the hull together. Compare that to how long it would take to "stitch and glue" with wires. It would take you three hours just to drill the holes, another hour to cut the wires, another 3-4 to get the panels lined up and stitched, and then afterwards another 3-4 to remove the wires! Add to that how much blood you'll lose poking yourself with the wires... the "taping method" is sooooo much better!! And your boat looks sooooo much better!) Whether you're doing the taping method or the stone-age "stitch and glue" wire sewing method, your hull won't look pretty at this point. You'll have epoxy smears, maybe a few drips and runs that you missed, etc... Not every sea...