Update on Fishnet

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.
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Original attempts. Horrible technique on my part.
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finally properly attired
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Learned about this stuff. See how awful that first attempt at Gelcoat went??
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Fun new toy. I didn’t even attach the dust deflector. I’m an idiot. It totally destroyed my smooth hull
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So a few days later I sanded some more and re-faired.
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This time I had proper dust collection measures.
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this thing is sweet! I have 80 grit and 320 on a roll for it.
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And here she is partly sanded!
 

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Great work, although I think that rotary sander would remove a lot of material fast. We use a random orbital sander which is slower but its random pattern is less prone to gouging.

As for gelcoat on Sunfish, some boats have super thick gelcoat that is bombproof, we have gone as low as 80 grit with light pressure and removed some fine scratches and the top layer of sunburnt gelcoat. Other boats, you can burn through the gelcoat by just looking at it for too long. 120 grit is our Go To grit, it dulls quickly to about 180-200 grit. We buy inexpensive pads and use a lot of them.

The chair in the background would make a good "Moaning Chair."

Definition: The "Moaning Chair" is described by Howard Chappelle as an essential tool to have, the place where you sit and ponder what you have either just screwed up or are about to screw up with all of your other tools. Moaning chairs come in all shapes and sizes and can be found next to favorite beverages. Moaning chairs should be available for all of the "usual visitors" as well so they can point out any mistakes the builder might have missed.

Boat building (or rehab) is simply about correcting one mistake after another, with the first mistake being to have begun in the first place. But Oh what fun!" (Pete Culler)

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Thanks! I actually have a moaning chair as well as a rolling pondering stool. As of tonight I have a single coat of TotalProtect on the hull. Had to order more to make sure that I’ll get good coverage. My hull clearly was painted in the past with goodness knows what. I wiped it down with Xylene, and in some places it took old yellowed paint right off.
 
Hmmmm Flex Sander = long board. Looks like good work.

I make my long board with a strip from a belt sander glued to a 1 X 3 or 4. Put handles on it. I use US Composite 635 THIN resin heavily loaded with 3-M micro balloons filler. It’s like spreading Kraft Marshmallow cream. Use your drywall tools or wide plastic blade. 3-day cure and then long boarding is fast.
 

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