Mama H Chicago
Mother of sailboats
It’s been a long few months, but I think Fishnet is finally well on her way to being the sweetest little Sunfish .
After a little oops this summer that resulted in a great big hole in her cubby area, she has since been glassed in there, aft foam replaced. Her hull has been gelcoated semi-successfully, then sanded mostly off and re-faired with Total Fair in the low spots.
This is the second go round with Total Fair, as i went a little crazy with my new Dewalt orbital sander and ended up gouging more valleys into her hull than I started with …. Oops!
Today I skipped my pre-sanding glass of rum, experimented with grit levels and speed in the sander (oh and finally hooked the sander up properly to my $25 steal of a $400 Dewalt dust extractor off FB Marketplace) and the hull looks great! It’s about 60% done being sanded fair.
Another new toy I used today was an 11.5 inch FlexiSander. LOVE this thing. Cost more than I wanted to spend, but darn it makes things flat!
Once I finish sanding this evening, I’m going to throw on a coat of something that will finish cure the TotalFair. If whatever that is dries fast enough, Fishnet is then going to get two new coats of Gelcoat without wax if I have enough left, the finally a coat with wax.
Original attempts. Horrible technique on my part.
finally properly attired
Learned about this stuff. See how awful that first attempt at Gelcoat went??
Fun new toy. I didn’t even attach the dust deflector. I’m an idiot. It totally destroyed my smooth hull
So a few days later I sanded some more and re-faired.
This time I had proper dust collection measures.
this thing is sweet! I have 80 grit and 320 on a roll for it.
And here she is partly sanded!
After a little oops this summer that resulted in a great big hole in her cubby area, she has since been glassed in there, aft foam replaced. Her hull has been gelcoated semi-successfully, then sanded mostly off and re-faired with Total Fair in the low spots.
This is the second go round with Total Fair, as i went a little crazy with my new Dewalt orbital sander and ended up gouging more valleys into her hull than I started with …. Oops!
Today I skipped my pre-sanding glass of rum, experimented with grit levels and speed in the sander (oh and finally hooked the sander up properly to my $25 steal of a $400 Dewalt dust extractor off FB Marketplace) and the hull looks great! It’s about 60% done being sanded fair.
Another new toy I used today was an 11.5 inch FlexiSander. LOVE this thing. Cost more than I wanted to spend, but darn it makes things flat!
Once I finish sanding this evening, I’m going to throw on a coat of something that will finish cure the TotalFair. If whatever that is dries fast enough, Fishnet is then going to get two new coats of Gelcoat without wax if I have enough left, the finally a coat with wax.
Original attempts. Horrible technique on my part.
Learned about this stuff. See how awful that first attempt at Gelcoat went??
Fun new toy. I didn’t even attach the dust deflector. I’m an idiot. It totally destroyed my smooth hull
So a few days later I sanded some more and re-faired.
This time I had proper dust collection measures.
this thing is sweet! I have 80 grit and 320 on a roll for it.
And here she is partly sanded!