Well its been over two weeks since my last update and with the weather warming I'm getting antsy to get my ski finished and on the water.
About two weeks ago I decided I was adding a splash shield to the nose (as if i dont have enough work to do...). So I started with marking out what I wanted it to look like on the hull and where I wanted it to be. Once I nailed that down I made a mixture of resin, cabosil, and chopped carbon and formed it to the rough shape of the splash shield (much harder than I anticipated as every time you tried to blend a spot it moved the whole mixture). After playing with that for a while I was satisfied with the result and let it cure.
Now that the splash shield was cured I needed to shape it and fill in the inherent air pockets left behind and blend any rough spots with some more cabosil. Prior to sanding any freshly cured resin I always clean the surface with soap and water and then rub down with a wax and grease remover to remove any amine blush.
Once that was cured I re-sanded and blended the splash shield, filleted all the corners, and sanded the entire rocker area to prep for a layer of carbon. I wasn't too comfortable with the idea of having a mass of resin stuck to the outside of my hull with no supporting composite to hold it on.
Once everything was sanded and ready I laid down one 5.7oz layer of plain weave carbon. Ran into some forming issues so I had to slit the carbon in a couple spots but overall I was happy with the result. Once I had the carbon laid out I mixed up a little more resin and tried to coat the whole area in extra resin to ensure it was easier to sand and less pin holes between the weave. I let that cure and ended up taking a few days off to be lazy (crap weather, crap motivation apparently lol).
Over last week the weather was not cooperative so I had a few down days. Mon/Wed after work, I washed all the amine blush off, and got back to the perpetual sanding. I sanded the bottom deck, blended the new carbon, and sanded every single crevice I could get into. Then dusted off the hull and wiped it down. It was at this point I realized I was not happy with the warps in the carbon on the sides of the bottom deck, nor was I happy with the excess amount of gelcoat in the pump tunnel that was chipping easily. So I used a torch because I noticed high rpm sanding discs were lifting the gelcoat due to heat. Wow what an awesome way to remove gelcoat.... Just heated it up enough to bubble and soften the gelcoat and literally peeled off with the primer in sheets. Mind you this could have been the previous owners shotty prep job. This is when I found another setback... The last guy decided to patch 2 holes in the pump tunnel with a poorly saturated glass cloth and didnt even sand the area he bonded to... Genius! SOOOOOOOOO I ripped both off, cleaned it up, SANDED THE AREA (weird concept), filled the holes with cabosil and carbon mix, then laid two layers of 5.7oz carbon over the areas and let it cure.
This brings us to yesterday after work. I cleaned and blended the new carbon patches in the pump tunnel, re-sanded the whole bottom deck lightly with 40grit and found a couple small air pockets in my rails and in the rocker. I ground out the spots and cleaned the entire hull with a duster, cloth, and wax and grease remover. Then I laid down a fairing compound with epoxy resin over all the little holes, the flat surfaces on the sides and rear of the bottom deck, as well as the rocker and let it cure.
My goals for this weekend are to finish sanding the new fairing compound, clean the hell outta the bottom deck and lay down some marine primer which I picked up earlier this week (Interprotect 2000E, as per
@Mud-Nut suggestion, and there isn't much else available around here for marine primers). If I can find a durable black paint in quarts this weekend, hopefully I'll get the bottom deck painted as well, which would be amazing!
