Final Sanding & Fairing Application for the Cockpit Well

July 7, 2019

With a few chores around the house on the books for the morning, and successfully taken care of, I got to work on the boat in the afternoon.  I had but a few hours, but was narrowly focused on the surface preparation for primer; specifically, the cockpit well and Coachroof.  I had completed fairing the foredeck in the previous work session.  I first started by water-washing the previous day's application of the TotalFair fairing compound, including spot fills in the v-berth.

I grabbed sanding tools and proceeded over to the boat, starting in the cockpit well.  I used the Bosch and 6" 80-grit pads to sand the first application of TotalBoat TotalFair.  This TotalFair fine fairing filler sands essentially like the West System 410 microlight product.  It's an easy product to sand, making it a great product to use for detail work and extremely shallow low spots.

I finished the cockpit floor's aft repair with ease, and with spartan use of my time.  There were but a few very shallow low spots that required another application of the TotalFair before calling this surface primer-ready.

I then moved over to sand the closed in old ice box, again moving swiftly through the TotalFair product.  I noticed in the center of the repair area, almost running the length of it, there was a rather broad but shallow low spot.  I would apply another skim coat before the close of work.

I moved up to the coachroof and completed the final sanding of this large repair area.  I have now checked this off the list, the coachroof is ready for primer paint.

After completing the day's sanding on the exterior of the boat, I moved into the v-berth and began sanding spot fills that I applied yesterday evening.  I had a good amount of the TotalFair epoxy filler left over from applying it to the coachroof yesterday, and so I went below and identified areas that required a spot fill.  As I went, I solvent-washed and then applied a bit of the fairing compound.  Today, and after water-washing the amine blush earlier, I sanded the spot fills to fair.  After wrapping this task up the v-berth is now ready for paint: overhead, ceiling, and v-berth itself.

With the sanding complete for the day, I retrieved some acetone from the shop, I then proceeded to vacuum and solvent-wash the surfaces requiring additional work.  The first area was the aft cockpit floor, port side.  I applied a very thin coat of the TotalFair product to just fill the remaining few shallow low spots.

I also applied a bit to the vertical surface of the starboard seat.

Finally, I applied the TotalFair to the old ice box repair.  As mentioned earlier, there was a shallow spot running the fore-aft length.  I ran a couple passes with a broad knife to complete the seating repair.  These few additional applications of fairing compound should complete the boat's exterior to the point that I can get a proper first coat of primer paint on.  This first coat will, as I intend and fully expect, show a number of imperfections that will require spot filling.  A beautiful paint job is 98% prep work.

Total Time Today: 3.5 hrs