Babys Bottom

Last nights session brought another round of sanding and fairing, and a second coat of the copper infused bottom paint. I also remembered to bring the camera, so here are a couple of shots of our progress...

This first shot is taken immediately after laying the second layer of bottom paint, though the picture doesnt quite do it justice. All of the white is a high-build primer. The bottom paint is the red in the back.

Its still shiny because its still wet. Once it dries, it looks pretty much like your run-of-the-mill rust-colored primer. Either way, Im pleased at the progress.

Before we laid the paint, I ran the random orbit sander over the starboard side, the bow and the stern for a final sanding, using 120 grit sandpaper. After laying the paint, Greg and I chatted, and we agreed that we will do no more sanding on these areas until we have placed a coat of paint on these surfaces. He still wants to do some additional touch-ups on the port side, which is fine because I agree that it needs a bit more work.

As I took the pictures of our paint job from the front, Greg asked me to post a shot of the skeg, so here it is. The skeg is constructed from a 2X2 strip of cypress (used for its highly water-resistant properties), with a strip of aluminum screwed into the top, after shaping the wood.

Important: According to Greg, copper and aluminum do not go well together. Apparently, they will cause a lot of corrosion. In order to prevent the aluminum strip from coming in contact with the copper in the paint, Greg was very careful to lay a thick coat of primer between the aluminum strip and the copper-infused paint. Please keep this in mind if you choose to mimic our addition!


Greg suspects that the addition of the skeg may reduce the maximum speed by one mile per hour or so, but he thinks (and I agree) that the increased maneuverability and handling will more than offset the decrease in top speed.

Next week, we plan to lay some white paint, using your standard roll and tip method. We plan to experiment on the bottom area. Since this is an area that few people will ever see, we figured that its the perfect area to work out the kinks in our technique.

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