The dinghy continues to progress. After we attached the fore and aft transoms, we temporarily stitched in the bulwarks to help the hull maintain it's shape and flipped it over. Then we squirted epoxy thickened with powdered silica in the cracks between the stitches. This mix is really, really strong and hard as a rock. After it cured, the hull was much stiffer.
The next step was to cut and pull all the copper stitches, fill in the gaps where they were with more silica thickened epoxy, fill in the little holes in the hull with wood flour thickened epoxy, then apply fiberglass cloth to the bottom using unthickened epoxy.
This is how the hull looks right now. The brown lines are epoxy that has been thickened with wood flour (really fine sawdust) . This is the mix we use to do the final fill in the cracks between the boards - it sands much more easily than the silica filler.
You can't see the fiberglass cloth very easily because, when it's wetted with epoxy, it becomes clear. After we finish filling the outside, we'll flip it over and start installing the "furniture" - the seats, etc. , probably later this week. We'll let you know how we progress.
Mark & Julie
s/v Rachel
