18 Trips

Today the Meranti Hydrotek was cut and glassed.

The mantra for the day was "sneaky cuts". As in, don't screw up $250 of marine plywood with impatience or inaccuracy.

So I carefully snuck up on each beveled or straight cut, climbing down and up the stairs to the basement workshop 18 times, testing the deck panels with repeated dry fittings.

This one turned out to be my worst cut, but the gap closes up when the panels are pulled in a little, plus a little fillet.

I kept track of the laps on the underside of my port side hatch. Next to my trusty resin hat. I may just leave it there unpainted, sort of a build-in-progress decoupage.

I've got to say, the cardboard templates, compass dividers, and tick stick worked really well. I'm really happy with how the deck panels came out.

After a little Surfoaming (always) for the final fitting, the panels were glassed on each side and trimmed.

Knee pads get some more use - I'm really glad I found these, lost among a bunch of other forgotten crap in the bottom of a shop drawer. They've been lifesavers.

A visitor, my bird hunting/fishing (and Roman Villa Pizza) buddy Bill showed up to the Marland Boat Shop (MBS) for a visit.

And earlier in the day, a new assistant, youngest son Michael (aka Mookie Bear) hopped in for some help with a flow coat inside the hatches, after we added some white pigment.

Looks like we'll still need some paint eventually, but it's a good start, getting a base primer coat on before the decks go on.

Mikey "volunteers" for the stern hatch. Good on ya Mooks!

Ruby, the DD, responds to my question of whether or not she wants to go outside on this cold, snowy day.

Or maybe participate in some of the build work in the garage?

First side of panels glassed.

After finishing the panels, I made 3 more trips to the basement, carrying down the rest of the Core Cell scraps (their job is done) to store in another metaphorical lost drawer, where I'll stumble across them years from now.

Pretty whooped.  Gonna be a 3 Advil night (sounds like a band).