It's been a long time!

Lots have been happening since the last post - in the last 3 weeks I've been spending most nights and a couple of weekends to get it to this stage. This is the hull after I've put glass tape along the chines, coated everything in epoxy three times, scraped back the edges of the tape, sanded the edges as well, and then 2 more coats of epoxy - mainly along the chines where I was sanding.

 

I'll be painting the bottom off white and the sides will be clear.

Some old repairs that had been done to the Heron, they're pretty good too, one was where the self bailer used to be.

Starboard deck is on!

Finally managed to get a full day in on the heron and got one deck glued. Almost ran out of clamps - had to use all 40 of them! No that I kinda know what I'm doing the other side should be pretty easy, just have to wait for some warmish weather.

Count 'em - lucky the boats not any longer!

Deck is stained!

I've been putting it off for a while but I finally bought some Feast Weston stain for the new ply. It went on a treat - not difficult at all. Did have to buy the one litre bottle though and I reckon I used about 100ml. I've also put on a couple of coats of epoxy on the seats and inside the boat, gave it a light sand and just have to put one more coat on.

Ooh that looks good

Steady as she goes

Over the last few weeks I've been doing bits and pieces - mostly filleting and filling up some holes. Just have to buy some stain for the deck before I can get some epoxy onto it. This boat restoring business is taking longer than I thought!

About time I posted another post, post.

Not much has been happening since the last post, however, I did manage to get some ply for the decks which I've started to shape and it's easier than I thought it would be. Should be able to get both sides finished buy next weekend. Also picked up all the epoxy we'll need to finish the boat.

The deck for each side is now made up from one piece of ply - before it was 3, not too sure why, maybe dad didn't have enough ply to do it in one piece. Should add a bit of stiffness though!

See the difference in the colour?? I'll have to stain the new ply as it's really light.

Getting serious now

Today I really got stuck into the Heron - took the plywood decking off most of the boat. One half of the front was sanded and I don't want to take those bit of ply off as they're in good shape and I like the look of the nails in the ply. When I replace the ply I want to use the bronze nails again so it matches the front. I'm pretty sure nails aren't needed with new epoxy's and it will create more work, but that's the look I want.

Very happy with my sanding

Taking off this ply made it easy to sand inside and remove any silicone (fingers crossed)!

Port side removed

Starboard side - see the nail marks I was talking about

Making progress

Had a big session today, Neil came over and gave me a hand with the sanding. We've almost finished doing the inside of the boat. We got a bit bored after a while and decided to remove some ply that had  a small amount of rot and a crack in it. It was easy to get off but it'll test my woodworking skills to replace, hopefully not too hard. Next week I've got a boatbuilder coming over to have a look and give me some idea on how to move forward.

Dogey ply taken off - shouldn't be too hard to replace