Sanding & Fairing

March 23, 2019

I had a serious amount of sanding in front of me, and rather than putting it off any further I decided to get to it.  The difficult sanding aspect would be the hand-sanding in the tight corners and radius areas of the cockpit.  I devoted the day to knocking this out.  I began by water-washing the last round of fairing compound applied, and did so using warm water and dish soap with a scouring pad.

With a combination of mechanical sanders and the old reliable fingers, using 40 and and 80 grit papers, I spent a nearly half of the time today completing this dreaded but necessary endeavor.  The gutters at the outboard edge of the cockpit seating proved most difficult to access, and had significant cracking and chipping gelcoat.  I removed what I could of the layers of paint and loose material, and plan to address the uneven surface with fairing compound.  In fact, I could not get to all of the tight areas within the cockpit - leaving the gutters around the cockpit locker access for a later date.

With the hand-sanding work out of the way for the day, I turned to the larger areas that could be addressed with the 6" and 5" DA sanders.  using 80 grit discs, I worked my way from the poop deck forward.

I removed the protecting plastic sheeting I had draped over the coachroof and sanded this repair area for the first time.  I decided not to apply fairing compound to this area today, leaving this potentially for tomorrow's session.

I sanded the starboard sidekick, bring this area to a close and ready for primer paint.

I then removed the peel ply covering the old fastener holes for the eyebrow trim.  The current owner decided against replacing this piece of trim, and I have to agree with his decision.  I believe the boat will look cleaner without this piece of brightwork breaking up the coachroof and cabin sides.  I sanded the errant 10oz cloth and fairing compound that I had previously applied.

 I started on the starboard side of the boat, and moved forward and down the port side.  The small repair areas will require another coat of fairing compound, which will likely come in tomorrow's session.

The final item that I was able to get to today was filling the old coaming board fastener holes in the molded cockpit coaming.  The Allied 24 has a 10 to 11" tall coaming board, and I will fabricating new boards from the fresh teak stock on hand.

I solvent-washed the interior and exterior surfaces of the molded fiberglass coamings, and then applied backing tape to the interior surface to prevent the thickened epoxy from squeezing through.  To prepare the surfaces for new epoxy work, I painted on a light coat of neat epoxy (epoxy resin without any thickening agents). I  then used a plastic squeegee to apply a layer of fairing compound to the repair area.  I cleaned up and called it a day after this application.

Total Time Today: 8 hrs