Mast tube glassed and glued, hatches completed

I glued the kingplank in and installed the mast tube through it, gluing it at the kingplank and gluing and glassing it to the mast step. It seems plenty strong.











I found stainless steel piano hinges at my local hardware store. I don't know what quality of stainless they are, but I bought a 6' piece anyway and cut two pieces for my seat hatches. I got these fitted to my satisfaction and then removed them for epoxy sealing.








You can also see here the drain holes I drilled through the transom. I have two brass tubes to install after one more coat of epoxy in the holes.

Painted masts, turned hull again, installed last seat tops

I painted the masts with some Rustoleum latex paint I had kickin around. I think it was left by the previous homeowners. You can see clearly that the tops of the masts are dissimilar.










This shows the mast tube being dry fitted with the kingplank in the forward compartment.












This is a good picture showing the interior with the forward seat tops installed. You can also see that I put the first coat of epoxy on the interior bottom and up to the sides.











I think I took this photo to show the shearline. I like this view. I can't wait to see it fair and painted.

hull turned to glass bottom and masts shellaced

Last week I turned the hull so that I could fair the bottom in preparation for glassing. In this picture you can see that I've planed the bottom panels flush with the chine (where the bottom meets the side) and you will also notice some purple colored areas. The purple stuff is epoxy mixed with microballoons. This forms an easily sanded filler for low spots. The large section at the bow needed a lot and still not fair. I also had a spot along the port chine where the bottom panel was short of the chine slightly. I had to build this up as well. Since this photo I've done some glass work and turned the hull again to start sealing the inside because I ran out of glass before I was finished - I miscalculated how many yards of fiberglass I needed - twice. I get some more pics when I turn it back over to finish glassing the bottom.
















I finished sanding my masts and sealed them with two coats of shellac. They are far from perfect. They should be 3" in diameter but are 2 3/4" in some spots and are not perfectly round or perfectly tapered. I decided to go ahead and finish them as they are with the intention to make another set from scratch later. These will get me sailing. I have sat on them stretched between the saw horses and bounced on them with all my weight and they did not crack. So, I think they'll hold up for a while.


Shellac is a very interesting stuff. It comes from some Asian beetle and is used as a finish on wood, the candy shell on skittles, the coating on pills, among many other things.










This one was just for fun.