Fairing (first pass)
FarrOut is going to get its hull fair in two stages. The first before applying glass cloth to get the basic shape smooth and the second prior to painting.
Fairing is done with West System 407 light filler. If you don't normally wear a mask I'd highly suggest donning one for this stage as the material is very light and tends to puff out off the mixing bowl especially as the additive is a fine dust.
I learnt a few tricks during this process.
Firstly wet the ply with a wet (neat) epoxy coat before applying the thick mixture as it won't penetrate the wood very well on it's own, but will chemically bond to the neat mixture you laid as a base.
Secondly down strips of the fairing compound first. You can do this pretty roughly as they are easy to sand. Let them cure for a few hours and sand them down (see next tip)
Fairing is done with West System 407 light filler. If you don't normally wear a mask I'd highly suggest donning one for this stage as the material is very light and tends to puff out off the mixing bowl especially as the additive is a fine dust.
I learnt a few tricks during this process.
Firstly wet the ply with a wet (neat) epoxy coat before applying the thick mixture as it won't penetrate the wood very well on it's own, but will chemically bond to the neat mixture you laid as a base.
Secondly down strips of the fairing compound first. You can do this pretty roughly as they are easy to sand. Let them cure for a few hours and sand them down (see next tip)
Notice that weird board sitting on the boat? That's my next tip! Make yourself a torture board. Mine is probably a little short the pros even build these for two man operation. This sanding board is flexible and holds a nice curve so the sand paper hits the high spots and misses the lows. My first board was a sheet of 4mm ply but that was too thin. Doubling up to 8mm helped a lot but I will probably build a longer one for final fairing.
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