Paul Gartside 18' Racing Gaff Cutter • Cabinversion designed by Dominik Gschwind

2012-09-12

Week 9 - Sanding / Hullturning

Actually the sanding process to get a nice smooth hullsurface allready started parallel to the work on the keel. It is not the nicest job to be honest but we managed it in 3 days and were really happy with the result.
To protect the rest of the workshopzone we worked in a tent of polythene and to protect ourselfs we did use the dustfiltermasks.
After having tried out both the orbitalsandermachines as well as the sandpaperboards the last one defintely seemed to be the better choice to treat the hullsurface.
The filler we applied every night on all low and flatspots was quite easy to get off and with the help of a workingtorch we tried to locate the last unfair spots the evening before going to the next step > painting the hull with EPU epoxyprimer.
We used 2 coats of EPU and before that coated the wooden parts of the keel with epoxy.
The next target then was to wet and dry sand the whole hull outside until having reached a surface quality comparable to a satinmatt pingpongball.
But before doing this we filled all those very small pinholes and scratches with a polyester based filler called P38.
So we got all this fillingspots as visible on the photo  to the left and thereafter the wetsanding-party could start.

Well... on tuesday 4th of september after lunchtime we were ready to turn the hull.
The whole class helped us to lift it off the moldes... turn it 180 degrees and place it softly down the floor in it's upright position... 

Wow, she's beautiful...

a moving moment and a milestone during the buildingprocess...
Thank's everyone who gave us a hand!