Boatbuilding = Social Distancing

With more time at home due the current health crisis I have been perfecting my social distancing.  Hopefully the increased time will hasten the launch date.  Here is a recap of the past month or so in the workshop:

While I had planned to paint the interior, I was reading an old post in the GIS Facebook group from Michael Storer that swayed me to varnish the interior.  Besides being beautiful, it is not as quick to look dirty, easy to diagnose any problems inside the wood, and easier on the eyes in full sun.  Unfortunately for me, I left the build lines under the epoxy as I planned to cover them with paint.  No problem, just went back and sanded them all off, because time is, for once, what I have a lot of!  This photo shows post sanding and re-coating with epoxy.

I had been putting off shaping the daggerboard since the rudder was such a SLOW process, however I purchased a set of CNC foil templates from Clint Chase of www.chase-small-craft.com that changed the process fro the better.  For a small price they are far more exact than the ones I created and certainly made the daggerboard come into shaper faster.

As always, work was progressing smoothly so I was due a slight tragedy.  In what seems to be a rite of passage for some, while glassing the daggerboard, I dropped it.  Thankfully the ends had already been glassed and the damage was not as bad as I had feared...

Now that it is spring I have regained lost ground from a fall that quickly turned bitter cold, so time to varnish.  As a matter of fact, a good portion of the build has been held up as I waited for good varnishing weather (for example the daggerboard case and the mast step.)  Below is coat 1 of 4 (if my hands don't fall off from sanding).

One helpful discovery is a closed-cell foam "block" leftover from canoe outfitting that I used for sanding varnish between coats.  Made the work easier on my bad canoeing wrists and made the surface more consistent.  220 left gouges visible through the varnish so I opted for 320 for the rest of the layers.

Holes drilled in the front of the boom and yard.  Boom is ready for a "bleater" (as they have come to be known).  Rear holes, I understand, will need to wait for the sail to be put on.

The first 2 layers on all parts thus far has been an unopened can of Interlux Schooner gloss varnish from when I started the build, way back in 2015 (don't worry it hadn't been opened so it was in perfect form).  However the sanding in between layers is what will do me in, so I plan to finish the last 2 layers with a new can of Epifanes Rapidclear I have on hand, as it does not require sanding between every coat.  For the interior of the boat I plan to try a new varnish (for me) that should take me into the summer instead of waiting again for the fall; TotalBoat Gleam 2.0.  Results will be shared, of course!