19th July

Not very exciting stuff happening in the last few days.  Mixed a bunch of epoxy with micro glass beads to create a fairing filler and plastered the stbd chine panel as a first experiment/trial on the best way to get a finish.  I mixed different batches of glass beads/epoxy ratios to get the best for me.  I discovered that the more glass beads in the mix the easier it is to sand but the most difficult to apply and get to wet out the surface it is applied to.  When it is more runny it is very easy to apply, not too difficult to sand but tends to slump and run a bit on near vertical surfaces making it very uneven.  Today I plastered the port chine panel using 160ml of mixed epoxy with 2 1/2 plastic cups (will check the ml size of the cups and let you know) of glass beads and two heaped teaspoons of cabosil to make it more thixotropic.  It worked very well and easy  to apply with no slump.  Will find out tomorrow how easy it is to sand.

I sanded the panel by hand with a long rigid foam sanding block using 80 grit.  Lots of work and sweat in varying directions to get a fair surface.  I marked all the hollows with pencil for refilling.

Skimmed the port chine panel with my chosen epoxy filler mix and also filled the marked spots on the stbd side.  Not looking forward to the sanding tomorrow.  My new respirator/dust mask is working overtime.  If I get bored of sanding I might just flip the hull over to look inside.